Better Days to Come
by Cinis
Summary: The body lies in state. The mourners have come. The mourners have gone. Only Menalippe remains. (Or: In which Menalippe would go to Hades and back for her wife) [Menalippe/Antiope]
1. Prothesis

**Better Days to Come**

 **Prologue**

* * *

The body lies in state.

The mourners have come.

The mourners have gone.

Only Menalippe remains.

Dressed in a red-brown tunic instead of leather and steel, she stands beside the bier. Dim evening light fills the courtyard of the palace. Her long dark hair is unbound because that's the way of these things. Her throat is raw from leading her sisters in mourning. The sun is setting now and her voice has long ago worn out to a bare whisper. And that's for the best.

The mourning, the lamentations, the breast-beating. These are the rituals of grief that the Amazons remember from men's world when death came often to all.

No one has ever before died on Themyscira.

After so many years, the wailing rites seem nothing more than rites.

What Menalippe feels – it is quiet.

The body lies draped from the neck down in a white cloth.

In death, Antiope's skin is pale. Washed in sea-water and anointed with the sacred oils, it glistens. Her hair is in its customary braid, but the braid is crooked. She always braided her own hair. Hands shaking, Menalippe didn't have the skill to arrange it as Antiope would have. Antiope's eyes and mouth have been closed. A gold coin sits under her tongue. A rich toll for Charon.

Does Charon still carry the dead across the dark river?

Without gods, what of souls?

Menalippe lifts Antiope's hand and threads her fingers between Antiope's fingers.

The body is cold and it is heavy.

Behind her, someone enters the courtyard. Menalippe does not turn to see who it is. The only one who would join her so late is Hippolyta. Though queen, Hippolyta has no right to disturb Menalippe here. _Having no right_ has never stopped Hippolyta before though. She had no right to delay Diana's training for so long. _No right_. Not as queen, not as mother.

Menalippe squeezes Antiope's hand tighter. Antiope's hand doesn't squeeze back. It's just… limp. _Dead_.

"She discovers the truth and defeats Ares," Menalippe says tightly. The future, shifting for so long, crystalized as soon as Diana left the island with the man. Menalippe Saw it, and then she returned to her duty.

The click of Hippolyta's teeth coming together fills the chamber. There's a brief return to silence, then, "But-"

"You'll see her again," Menalippe says. She's too tired to stop herself from sounding bitter.

Hippolyta's response comes soft. "Thank you."

Menalippe listens to Hippolyta leave. Still, she doesn't turn.

As in Antiope's life, in death, Menalippe's eyes are only for her.

Poets liken death to sleep. Nothing about Antiope suggests sleep. Antiope was a restless sleeper, always too hot or too cold or not quite in the right position. Menalippe wove a second blanket so Antiope would stop taking hers and then throwing it on the floor halfway through the night. Stillness does not suit her. Even braided crooked, her hair is neater than it should be. The braid wasn't for vanity, it was because Antiope spent most of her time as a sweaty mess in the training yards.

Menalippe reaches out and gets her fingers in Antiope's hair and then drags them through. The result is something slightly more recognizable.

It occurs to Menalippe that she has been standing for a very long time and that she is very tired.

She steps back from the bier and sits down on the stone pavement. She hugs her knees against her chest. She sets her chin on top of her knees. She stares at the body.

The sun dips below the horizon.

[] [] []

Hippolyta leads the _ekphora_ , the funeral procession.

 _As is her right_.

Menalippe follows her sister-in-law a step behind. And behind Menalippe follows the body, carried by Antiope's other captains. Behind Antiope come the other dead from the beach. The bodies have been draped in rich cloth so that only their heads are exposed. Antiope's shroud is a deep purple with gold embroidery showing a battle from before the Amazons came to Themyscira. Her pallbearers are armed, as are all the rest of the procession and all the rest of the onlookers. The clatter of steel on steel and steel on stone is almost louder than the keening of mourners. The cacophony is enough to drown out coherent thought.

They go down from the palace where the bodies have lain in state. Themyscira has no graveyard, and so they have decided to inter the dead on a low hill overlooking the main training yard. The women who died were the ones who after the thousands of years of peace had clung still to war.

The procession follows the main road of the city. It twists and it turns down the great hill of the palace. There are faster ways to descend, but time is something Themyscira has in abundance. They depart from the palace before sunrise and do not reach pyres on the field until after midday.

Menalippe helps the other captains raise the body up onto the stacked wood. When the others climb down from the pyre, she lingers. The shroud has gotten pulled down slightly, leaving the shoulders of the body exposed.

Antiope was shorter than Menalippe, shorter than Hippolyta, shorter than most of the Amazons.

But in life, she never seemed short. She held herself with poise and power.

In death, she seems small.

Menalippe fixes the shroud, pulling it back up to the base of the neck and then descends from the pyre.

First among the Amazons, Hippolyta lights her sister's pyre. After her, other Amazons light the pyres of their own dead.

The flames rise high, roaring, incinerating. As the flames rise, so too does the keening lamentation of the Amazons.

Menalippe stands silent in the grass of the field.

She sang herself empty at the lying in state, the _prothesis_. She has nothing left to say that can be said.

When the flames have burnt themselves down, Hippolyta leads the Amazons in pouring wine over the smoldering pyres to quench the flames. It falls then to Menalippe to collect the ashes into an urn. It's simple in shape, a round jar with a narrow base and a wide body, but elaborately decorated. It has been painted with a likeness of a white-skinned Antiope battling a black centaur, Hippolyta and Menalippe behind her, Athena watching over her.

The Amazons had had no funerary devices on hand. Antiope's cinerary urn was a water jar in Hippolyta's palace only a week ago.

When Menalippe has finished gathering up the ashes, she takes the urn to a grave that's already been dug up on the hill over the field. Other graves surround it, prepared for their other fallen comrades.

Antiope's rest is in the middle of them all and has more space around it. She'll have a higher cairn than the others.

That's not what Antiope would have wanted.

But it's what Hippolyta wants.

Menalippe lowers the urn into the grave. From a chest that was brought down ahead of the procession, she takes chosen grave goods to place with it. Antiope's favorite shield. The toy horse Antiope carved for Diana. The second blanket Menalippe wove for Antiope.

Wrapping the cinerary urn in the cloth, Menalippe thinks that her own heart will stay in the grave with the empty ashes as well.

In the world of men, for a _strategos_ of such standing as Antiope, someone would have slit Menalippe's throat and set her among the grave goods.

Antiope's spirit, then, would have roused itself from the house of Hades and cut down whoever dared – she'd always found the custom barbaric. Shoveling earth over the urn and her memories, Menalippe thinks perhaps it was not such an awful thing.

They don't bury Antiope with her crown.

Hippolyta gave that to Diana.

Which is… what Antiope would have wanted.

When Menalippe's done covering the grave, she joins the other mourners at a feast laid out on grass of the training yard. The funeral has lasted the full day and the sun is low in the sky now. They'll build the cairns in the days to come.

Tonight, they drink.

[] [] []

It wouldn't be fair to the others who loved Antiope to keep the cairn-raising to herself. Hippolyta lays the first stone ( _as is her right_ ) and then Menalippe and the rest toil for a week building the rest of it. They pause in their work only on the third day to lay out the first of the food offerings to the departed.

Hippolyta allows Menalippe to work with the stonecutters in crafting the stele.

What results is less a stele and more a statue in white marble, painted lifelike.

They sculpt Antiope in armor astride her horse, emerging from the stele. She's looking forward, out to the horizon, out towards the future. And beside Antiope, in stone, Menalippe stands, holding her reins and looking not to the horizon but up to her.

The artisans do breathtaking work. The likeness of Antiope is near perfect. The statue looks more like her than the body did.

[] [] []

The day after the statue is installed, Hippolyta begins the games.

The games take place on the field beneath the grave-hill.

Out of all the warrior's arts, Antiope loved archery best and so that's what they begin with.

At one end of the field, the Amazons raise a tall pole. Affixed to the top of the pole is a reed ring on a string with cloth stretched across its center. It's at such a height and is so light that it flutters to and fro in the wind. There are only a handful of clouds in the sky and the sun is bright. Menalippe has to squint to see the target standing only half the field away. The archers, the best archers on the island, line up at the most distant part of the field.

Hippolyta sits on a makeshift throne atop a small wood platform at the side of the field. The Amazons who are not competing are spread out around her, spectators of sport. All wearing brightly colored tunics and robes, they're a sight to be seen sitting on the grass of the training yard. The yard has never seen so many civilians since they came to Themyscira.

Menalippe takes her seat next to Hippolyta.

With Antiope gone, her duties have fallen to Menalippe. Menalippe is now _strategos_ of the Amazons. Menalippe is now Hippolyta's second.

It's a role she lacks the fire for.

Hippolyta and Antiope were the first of the Amazons. They were sisters in a way that the rest of the Amazons are not. They played well off one another. They were constantly bickering, but in a kind fashion that lacked any of the rancor normally implied by the word. Menalippe cannot be Antiope and she has no interest in trying.

"I think Areto could win," Hippolyta says. There's a somewhat strained smile on her face. "It's been so long since we had a contest. She's improved quite a lot in the past years."

"Clio will win," Menalippe replies woodenly. It takes little effort to peer just a few moments into the future.

Hippolyta's forced smile vanishes.

Hippolyta and Menalippe both stare ahead at the competition.

All the competitors are great archers. They can hit any target they can see. And that's the catch. Clio is the only one who can clearly see the distant ring fluttering in the breeze. To compensate for the long days she spends hunched over her books, she wears spectacles, polished glass set in a metal frame over her eyes.

The first several rounds, every archer misses the target, but on the fifth try, Clio cuts the string and brings the target to the ground.

Hippolyta makes a speech and then crowns Clio with the olive wreath.

"You should award the next victor," Hippolyta says. On the field, a new group of contestants have stepped forward to compete in a footrace. "Whomever it is."

"Atalanta," Menalippe replies. She hesitates, then, "Probably." She doesn't know that Atalanta will win, but Atalanta hasn't lost a race since they came to Themyscira. And that was a very long time ago. She doesn't have to be a Seer to see what's plain in front of her.

Skirts hitched up, the runners assemble at the starting mark. They'll lap the island twice in their race.

"She's still grieving Orana," Hippolyta says. "Grief is heavy."

"We're all still grieving," Menalippe says.

Hippolyta's annoyance is clear in her tone. "Sister, you-

Menalippe cuts her off. "You never called me sister before."

Atalanta wins the race.

[] [] []

The table in Menalippe's house has four chairs.

Since the death, she's eaten at it only once.

Instead, she takes her meals with Antiope's other captains. They come together on the field where they train. They did this before as well, but infrequently. Not every day. And Antiope was always with them.

They eat and they talk. They talk of nothing at all. They talk of training regimens. They talk of weapon rotations. They talk of the weather. It rarely storms on Themyscira, but when it does they try not to miss the opportunity to work in the rain and the mud as they did so often in the world of men.

All the while, atop the hill, the graves watch them.

Days turn to weeks. Weeks turn to months. Months pass – or maybe they don't. Time, in Themyscira, is ephemeral.

One by one, the other captains stop coming. They return to their families. In the end, only Menalippe remains.

The table in Menalippe's house continues to gather dust.

It's evening on the field and Menalippe has just sat down to eat her bread and cheese when Hippolyta comes riding down from the palace with a second horse in tow behind her. Her armor, like her crown, shines of gold and her white fur mantle would tell any stranger of her status. Not that there are any strangers on their island. Nor will there be for a great many years to come. Menalippe long ago grew tired of constantly peering into the future for every question, but some events, like Diana's defeat of Ares, are too momentous to shut out.

Hippolyta brings her horse towards Menalippe and Menalippe stands. "My queen," she says.

" _Strategos_ ," Hippolyta greets. "You're missed at dinner."

Menalippe doesn't understand. She allows her silence to speak her confusion for her.

Hippolyta nudges her horse, a tall chestnut, forward a few steps. She's holding the lead for the other horse, which she offers to Menalippe.

Menalippe eyes the lead with suspicion. She doesn't much want to eat dinner wherever it is Hippolyta intends. She prefers the quiet of the field. The watch of the graves is not something she's inclined to leave. But Hippolyta is her queen.

"Come," Hippolyta orders.

Menalippe wraps her dinner back up in its cloth. She takes the lead and mounts the second horse. The horse is a black mare, slightly older, but still in a condition to carry Menalippe and her armor. A good pick for navigating city streets.

Together, the two women turn towards the palace. Hippolyta sets the pace, an easy trot. They cross the field quickly and it's not long before they're winding through the city. They don't take the main road. Instead, they take the smaller streets, the ones that go more directly towards their destination. The sun paints the horizon red as it sets. There are only a handful of Amazons out in the city; most have retreated indoors to cook and eat their dinners. A few guards salute them as they pass.

They go the entire ride in an uncomfortable silence.

At the gates of the palace, guards take their horses. Menalippe gives her mare a pat on the neck before following Hippolyta into the complex. Neither Antiope nor Menalippe ever much liked lingering in Hippolyta's gold and marble home. They always suggested dinners in their small house with its small table and four chairs near the training grounds. Sometimes, Hippolyta was even amenable.

It's difficult to move quietly in armor through the quiet stone palace. The spaces are built on a grand scale and noise echoes. Hippolyta owns the clamorous racket of her passage. Menalippe tries to ignore the clatter of armor in such a house but can't. It's loud and out of place.

They go first to the sleeping quarters. Both in armor, they have to change before they can eat. Menalippe, after a day on the field, must also make some attempt to wash. It's another reason she and Antiope rarely dined with Antiope's sister. They were always free to tramp about their own home while covered in muck. Hippolyta's palace abhors dirt. It's too white. Too perfect.

Hippolyta goes to her chambers.

Menalippe goes to the room set aside for Antiope. They rarely used it except for situations like this one, coming in from the field and needing to clean and change, or when dinner ran late and they didn't much want to trek back down to their own home.

Menalippe steps past the threshold and closes the door behind her. It's a small room with few furniture pieces. It has a table with two chairs, a chest of clothes, a washbasin, and a bed. The washbasin has already been filled with clean water in anticipation of Menalippe's arrival.

Antiope used to splash water from the basin in Menalippe's face. She thought herself very funny. Once, Menalippe retaliated by lifting up the entire basin and dumping it over Antiope's head. They had to send for more water and they both arrived to dinner late by a good deal more than the time it took to wash and change. Hippolyta was furious.

It's wrong.

It's all wrong.

This isn't Menalippe's room. It's Antiope's room. Menalippe shouldn't be here alone. And it shouldn't be so silent.

Menalippe moves swiftly, as if she can replace the absence of laughter with the clatter of armor.

She undresses and drops her armor in a heap by the door. She washes herself. She dresses in a red and brown _chiton_. She draws it from the chest of clothes. In the chest, her things are intermingled with Antiope's. Hers lie stacked on the left, Antiope's on the right. Antiope was short enough that there were only a few garments that they could share well.

Instead of closing the chest, Menalippe takes out one of Antiope's tunics. It's a light green. Neither one of them made it. It was a gift from Hippolyta, who herself got it from one of the weavers. Menalippe raises it to her face and inhales. It smells like dirt and grass and sun.

She's still kneeling beside the chest, still chasing memories, when Hippolyta returns.

Hippolyta tries to speak softly. But it's not in her nature. "She wouldn't want you to starve."

Antiope wouldn't have wanted an awful many things. She wouldn't have wanted a cairn so much greater than her sisters. She wouldn't have wanted her sister harassing her wife either.

Menalippe replaces the clothing and closes the chest. She stands and follows her queen to the _triklinion._ The dining room of Hippolyta's house is as ostentatious as the rest of it, though it pales in comparison to the great hall where feasts are held for the entire island. Large enough to accommodate the full council of the Amazons, the _triklinion_ has been set tonight for only two. There is a couch for Hippolyta and a couch for Menalippe and a table laden with food between them.

Reclining, Menalippe is uncomfortably aware that she has never before sat alone in the place of honor beside her queen.

The food is thick with fat, a royal meal. The wine is unwatered.

Antiope enjoyed such strong wine. But then, she could drink the stuff as if it were water and still wake early the next day. Menalippe prefers her wine mixed.

It's a poor guest who complains.

"How fares the army?" Hippolyta asks. Her tone is flat. She's straining to make conversation.

"The army stands ready, my queen," Menalippe answers, voice equally unenthusiastic.

"Good," says Hippolyta.

"Why are you doing this?" Menalippe asks. She sets down her goblet with a heavy thunk. The dark liquid within sloshes up over the sides. She's had too much wine.

"Doing what?" Hippolyta challenges. She takes a deep draught of her drink and then sets down her goblet with an equal amount of force, if not greater. She's had too much wine as well.

Menalippe doesn't answer the rhetorical question. Instead of looking at her sister-in-law, she scowls at the food on the table before them. If she wanted, she could squint at the strings leading to the future and defuse the conversation. She doesn't want. She doesn't care.

"I am your queen," Hippolyta says. "And I am your sister-in-law. And I am _kyrios_ to you."

Menalippe flinches. She hasn't heard that word in some time. And it hasn't meant anything to her since a time in another life. She turns her scowl from the food to Hippolyta. "Of all the customs of men, that's the one you cling to?"

"You are a member of my household," Hippolyta says. There's a touch of heat in her voice, though it's not anger.

Menalippe pushes herself up on the couch so that she's sitting upright instead of reclining. She's now above Hippolyta. "So you'll take my things and find me a dowry and a new wife?"

" _No_." Hippolyta sounds so scandalized Menalippe almost regrets her words.

Somewhat off balance from the drink, Menalippe stands. The room spins. She staggers towards the door. "Then leave me alone."

Behind her, she hears Hippolyta gracelessly stand and teeter after her. Walking out on her queen seems less and less a sound idea the longer she takes to execute it, so she pauses at the door.

"You're the _only_ member of my household," Hippolyta says.

Menalippe leans against the doorframe. It makes the world spin less. "You still have Diana."

She sounds bitter. She is bitter.

It's not that she loves Diana any less than Antiope did or than Hippolyta does. Any one of them would have given their life for her. Menalippe just resents that it wasn't Hippolyta. Or herself.

Drunk, Hippolyta is not as good at hiding her thoughts from her face as she usually is. It's clear what she wants to ask. But she won't. Asking for the details of what an oracle sees is improper and, some say, an ill omen in and of itself. Menalippe won't volunteer what she's seen. It won't do Hippolyta any good.

Menalippe tries to shove herself away from the doorframe to get on her way again, but as she steps forward, the world tilts, spins, and blurs.

She's-

She's in a vast cave. The ceiling is so high and so dark that it seems like the inky black of a stormy night. She carries a torch, but its light does little to ward off the press of shadows. Forward. She walks forward. As she moves, she hears the soft clink of her armor, though the noise is swallowed by the cavern. In the hand that does not carry the torch, she holds her spear. Her grip is tight, but her palm is sweaty. She's nervous.

She's never been in such a cave. This isn't a memory.

She's Seeing what will come. Not what _might_ come. What _will_ come. The vision has none of the haze that accompanies her dealings with future's maybes. Everything is crisp and clear. She can smell the dank mist of an underground pool. She can hear her steps as she moves.

The world goes dark with a crack.

[] [] []

Menalippe wakes to Hippolyta crouched over her.

She's lying on the floor of the palace, just outside the _triklinion_. Her head hurts.

Normally, she's able to keep her feet when a vision intrudes so forcefully. With all the wine, she must have fallen.

Still drunk, she pushes herself up and to her feet.

"Menalippe," Hippolyta says. It's half-question, half-order. If Menalippe has Seen anything Hippolyta needs to know, Menalippe must tell her queen, now.

There's nothing Hippolyta needs to know.

"The wine," Menalippe mutters. "Moved too fast. Going home now."

"You can't go home," Hippolyta insists. She makes to grab Menalippe's wrist. "You just fell."

"Stop me," Menalippe growls, evading Hippolyta.

Hippolyta does not stop her.

She manages to stagger back to Antiope's house by the training grounds. When she arrives, she pours herself a cup of unwatered wine. She sits down in Antiope's seat at their dusty table and drains the goblet.


	2. Hippolyta

**Better Days to Come**

 **Chapter One  
**

* * *

When Menalippe reaches the training yard, it's after midday. She slept badly, woke late, and had to retrieve her armor from the palace at the peak of the city.

The other captains have gotten on with the day well in her absence. Philippus leads shield drills. The weapons the men had wielded, the guns, were fast-working projectile weapons. The smiths are taking the devices apart and studying them. Meanwhile, the warriors adapt.

The captains make no comment when she finally arrives.

Wordlessly, Menalippe takes up her own weapon and shield and joins the rest.

[] [] []

When the sun sets, Menalippe goes home. Her home has three rooms and three rooms only. It has a room for eating, a room for sleeping, and a room for hers and Antiope's weapons and armor. The room for eating is the main room. She sits down at her place at their table and eats her bread and cheese and drinks her wine mixed with water and honey.

Hippolyta does not come knocking.

Finished eating, Menalippe cleans her bowl and puts it away. Their home has always been orderly, not because one or the other of them preferred it that way, but because it was in both of their natures. Done with tidying, she retreats to their bedroom.

Menalippe removes her armor and puts it away. She washes, then goes to sit on their bed.

It has only one blanket now. Her blanket.

Menalippe sits down and she closes her eyes. Visions, clear ones, ones with such certainty, come to her rarely and when they do, they do not come lightly. In her mind, the world is threads, a great field of threads loosely woven into a cloth. Each thread runs off in a different direction. The weaving is chaotic. 'Weaving' is hardly even the right word for it, it's merely the only thing she's ever been able to compare her sense of the future to such that others can understand. She finds a thread and she seizes it in her mind and she follows it. She's looking for something that any thread should take her to.

She sits for hours chasing threads. Sometimes they run out, cut short for some reason. Sometimes she goes so far that she can't keep her grasp in the haze of the future and must return to the beginning to start anew. It is tiring work. Along the way, she glimpses so many possibilities that her mind spins. As time passes, following threads becomes harder and harder.

It has been a long time since she last chased futures with such intent and she has fallen out of the habit of mental discipline that's required for the work.

When she gives up for the night, she's exhausted and she's seen nothing useful.

She crawls under her blanket in their bed and sleep takes her.

She dreams of the sea and of drowning.

[] [] []

Hippolyta waits an entire week before she summons Menalippe again. Instead of coming herself, she sends Atalanta down to the practice fields as the warriors are wrapping up for the day. The queen doubtless knew Menalippe would have an easier time of sending her sister-in-law away than sending back any messenger to deal with Hippolyta.

Menalippe answers Atalanta's message with a grunt. They've all lived on Themyscira alongside one another long enough that Atalanta won't take it personally. Running a message to an in-law comes with certain hazards. Atalanta replies to Menalippe's grunt with a sympathetic grimace. She understands.

This time, instead of riding to the palace from the fields, Menalippe goes back to her home to wash and to change. She leaves her armor on its rack in their weapons room. Next to Antiope's armor.

Menalippe takes her time walking up to the palace. If Hippolyta wanted her there quickly, the queen would have sent a horse.

At the gate of the palace complex, the leader of Hippolyta's guard, Artemis, greets her. "Captain," the giant woman says with a nod. Wearing her full armor, she's easily one of the most intimidating Amazons on the island. There's a heavy pause, then, " _Strategos_."

"Artemis," Menalippe greets in return. She makes no comment on the mistake. "Our queen is expecting me."

Artemis isn't standing in the way, but she steps back to indicate the open door anyway. "Not exactly," she says. "She wasn't sure you'd come."

This draws a wry look from Menalippe as she shakes her head. "Don't tell me that," she says. "I might turn around."

For all her size and strength and despite her namesake, Artemis has kind eyes. "It's a long way and a long time to dinner if you do that."

Speaking for itself, Menalippe's stomach growls.

"You should make haste," Artemis says. "Or there may be none left."

Menalippe thanks Artemis and enters the palace. It's just as cold and lifeless as ever. On her way to the _triklinion_ , she passes by the courtyard where Antiope lay for the _prothesis_. It's warm – it's always warm on Themyscira – but a cold shiver runs down her spine anyway. The courtyard is just as it was then, save that the bier has been removed. She looks away and walks quickly.

In the _triklinion_ , Hippolyta is alone. Again, the room has been set for only two.

Menalippe does her best to ignore the hope that breaks across Hippolyta's face when she enters. She strides over to her couch and arranges herself on it wordlessly. Without greeting Hippolyta, she reaches for a fig.

She never would have treated her queen in such a manner if Antiope lived.

If Hippolyta had roused Menalippe's ire, Antiope would have done it on her behalf.

One more way she's stepping into a role she was never meant to fill.

"How fares the army?" Hippolyta asks. Her tone is less flat than the last time she asked. There's a touch of hesitancy in it now.

"The army stands ready, my queen," Menalippe answers.

Hippolyta sips at her wine. It's been well-watered this time. "How fares Menalippe?" she asks.

Grape halfway to her mouth, Menalippe freezes. "What?"

Hippolyta clears her throat, more awkward than insistent, though nothing the queen does could ever truly be called awkward. She lives in grace. "How are you?"

Menalippe puts the grape in her mouth and chews. She swallows. It buys her time to consider her response. She could cheat, of course. She could search through the threads for the words that will bring her to some desirable outcome, but she doesn't know what she'd be looking for. "I am…" she begins, "still grieving."

"I see," Hippolyta replies.

"And you, my queen?" Menalippe asks.

Hippolyta raises her goblet, looks at it, then sets it back on the table without drinking. "I am also still grieving."

Silence settles over the room. Menalippe has found she's lost her appetite and Hippolyta seems much the same.

"Did you know?" Hippolyta asks.

It's clear what she's asking. The answer is simple. Menalippe takes her time in replying though. After the question seems to have faded into the quiet of the chamber, she says, "Yes."

"Did you tell her?" Hippolyta asks.

The answer is the same. Again, Menalippe's response is slow. "Yes."

"And neither of you told me." Hippolyta's tone is thick with accusation. There's anger in it.

Menalippe cannot fault her for it. "It would have changed nothing," she says. "You were better off for it."

"I could have… I could have prepared," Hippolyta says. "I could have said goodbye."

Menalippe thinks of her own goodbye. She thinks of kissing Antiope with such desperation, as if she could take Antiope's soul and shelter from the coming storm in her own body. She thinks of Antiope's eyes as her _strategos_ tried to drink her in, to memorize her face before the long and dark road to the house of Hades. Antiope's eyes were bright blue, the color of a cloudless sky.

She thinks, too, of the long nights she spent weeping in Antiope's arms.

"It wasn't your decision to make," Hippolyta presses.

"No," Menalippe concedes. "But it was hers."

Hippolyta takes her goblet and she drains it. She stands, but she doesn't move to leave. Instead, she walks to a small table near the back of the chamber. She returns with an urn, one painted with the goddess Artemis leading her Amazons against Athens. Menalippe remembers that battle well. Antiope took an arrow to the shoulder. When Menalippe reached the offending archer, she impaled him through the throat, her spear going a good foot and a half out the back of his neck.

Hippolyta pours herself another glass of wine. From the look and smell of it, it's strong. She takes Menalippe's cup, finishes it, and pours Menalippe a new cup from the same urn.

Menalippe doesn't need the threads of Fate to suspect that this, having been so begun, will not end well.

"Is there anything else you have neglected to inform me of?" Hippolyta asks. She remains standing.

"No, my queen," Menalippe answers.

"Drink your wine," Hippolyta orders. "And then answer me again."

Menalippe doesn't much want to drink Hippolyta's wine. "I am hiding nothing from you," she says. "I am not the only one who Sees. Ask another oracle for your answers."

Of all the Amazons so gifted, Menalippe's Sight is by far the strongest. If she hasn't Seen something, it is unlikely any of the others have. What's more, where she Sees, they tend to speak in prophecy. Spoken prophecy is a double-edged sword. Acting on such words can be as dangerous as ignoring them. But vision, prophecy, clairvoyance – that's not what Hippolyta is after. Trust is not something that can be gained through asking others.

"Drink," Hippolyta orders again.

Menalippe takes her goblet and she drinks. She drinks it all. She pours herself another cup and drinks that too. Then, "I am hiding nothing from you," she says. She stands. Though she's had more wine than she should, it hasn't yet set in. "And I am going now."

And then she goes.

[] [] []

The next time Hippolyta sends for her for dinner, Menalippe refuses.

She wonders if Hippolyta will find a new _strategos_.

She hopes that she will.

She doesn't care enough, however, to examine the threads and find a way to force her queen's hand. Her sister-in-law's problems are not her own.

[] [] []

Menalippe's problem is the vision of the cave.

She has yet to find it again. Every night she sits on their bed and she searches, but no thread will take her to the cave. Part of her begins to wonder if the vision was naught but a drunken hallucination brought on by the crack of her head against the stone of the palace floor. But no. It was too clear. She smelled the cave. She heard her armor. She felt the sweat prickling on her brow.

She has been living with her gift, the blessing of Hermes, for thousands of years now. She knows what she saw.

So every night she goes back to her fruitless searching.

It would be frustrating, but she's grateful for it. She's grateful for the distraction.

She fills the time she would have spent with Antiope parsing out the branching possibilities of the future. It is meditative. Trancelike. So lost in things that may never be, it is easy to forget the things that are.

[] [] []

It's a month before Menalippe sees her sister-in-law again.

Hippolyta, who once was in the habit of coming down to the yards to watch her sister and her daughter train, rarely leaves her palace and rarely travels the city now. She hasn't been seen in the fields since she first summoned Menalippe to dinner.

It's the biannual full meeting of the council. Menalippe cleans her armor, dons it, clasps a red cloak about her shoulders, and treks out to the hills where the council sits.

The last time the queen held council was during the _prothesis_. Philippus had attended as Menalippe's proxy.

Now, Menalippe joins for the first time as _strategos_ of the Amazons. She takes her seat to the right of the queen's throne. Queen and _strategos_ sit at the head of a stone ring. The other councilmembers sit along the ring in three ranks. The most senior sit closest to the speaking floor in the center of the ring. Anyone may attend a meeting, but only the councilmembers may sit or move to speak by their own authority.

The council area is outdoors. When the Amazons first arrived on Themyscira, they sited their council in an area surrounded by hills. The ring of seats is cut into the base of the hills and the hills themselves amplify the voice and give the audience a place to gather so they might see and hear.

Menalippe has arrived before Hippolyta. Indeed, she has arrived before most of the council and most of the audience.

Antiope hated the meetings. Menalippe did too. For a thousand years it was the same meeting, again and again and again and again. To pass the time, they'd played a game. Menalippe, standing behind Antiope, would try to touch her without drawing the ire of any of the council. Most of the time she only managed to get a hand on Antiope's shoulder before someone noticed, but, once, she got a few hand's breadths lower. After that, they'd been watched far more sharply and even their game became a cycle playing out endlessly.

But Antiope's neck was sensitive and getting to her shoulders had always been more than enough to distract her.

Now it's Menalippe in the seat of the _strategos_ and grim Philippus stands behind her.

Philippus has eyes only for Hippolyta. Hippolyta does not reciprocate.

When Hippolyta comes to the council, all rise in her honor. They do not sit again until she is seated to Menalippe's left.

The council begins as it always has, with Hippolyta speaking words of ritual. She names the Five and thanks Zeus for this paradise of Themyscira. She reminds the councilwomen of their oaths to their sisters and to their queen. And then her voice falters. Her opening shifts. She speaks of Diana. She speaks of Ares. She speaks of an uncertain future. When she goes silent, the council has begun. Any may now take the floor.

And take the floor they do. One after another, the council stand to praise Hippolyta's steady leadership in such a time of crisis. Some of the speeches are better than others.

Menalippe remains stoic. Her face is blank. She would not undermine her queen.

The speeches blur together. The world blurs together.

In her mind, she's sitting on a grassy hill. Beside her, Antiope is resting, eyes closed, chest slowly rising and falling.

Antiope. Dead Antiope.

Antiope cracks one blue eye open and looks up at Menalippe. "Stop frowning," she says. "Your face will get stuck like that." Antiope props herself up on her elbows and then reaches out. "Come here."

" _Strategos_ ," Menalippe says, voice pitched for caution.

" _Strategos_ of my heart," Antiope replies, grinning.

" _Strategos_?"

From the council floor, Mnemosyne looks straight up at Menalippe.

"Yes?" Menalippe prompts, indicating she's now paying attention.

Mnemosyne offers a sad smile. "You're just like she was," the councilwoman says. "Even though there's no one there to distract you. With you here, it's as if she's still with us. She could not have named a better successor."

"Thank you," Menalippe replies, voice hollow.

"And as for the prophecy…?" Mnemosyne prompts.

Menalippe wants to squirm, but it wouldn't be proper. "The prophecy?"

"Dodona's prophecy," Mnemosyne says. " _The gate must be shut or the world will end_."

Menalippe forces her face to remain blank. Among those Amazons blessed with the power to foretell what will come, Dodona is infamous for her doom-saying. But the problem with open-ended doom-saying is that, though it will surely come to pass, it rarely comes to pass in a timely manner or in any form that could be predicted using the words of the prophecy.

"I've Seen nothing of that nature," Menalippe says. It's only belatedly that she realizes the question went to her not as an oracle but as _strategos_. She adds, "But I'll look into it."

Mnemosyne thanks her and retreats to her seat along the inner edge of the stone ring.

Menalippe thinks she handled the situation well. Or, well enough.

At the end of the meeting, Hippolyta is impossible to escape.

As Menalippe walks back towards her home, Hippolyta falls in beside her, matching her stride. "It's a poor _strategos_ who does not attend her queen."

"If my queen wishes to see me, she knows where I am," Menalippe replies. "This island is only so large." She turns a corner, boots clanking against the pavement. Hippolyta turns the same corner, still coming after her.

"And you do the same thing every day," Hippolyta adds dryly.

"As do you," says Menalippe.

Hippolyta follows Menalippe all the way home and invites herself in. _As is her right_. She is queen, and, Menalippe thinks darkly, _kyrios_. Hippolyta goes and she sits at her seat at the table. As she sits, she disturbs the thick layer of dust that's been accumulating everywhere except for the small area where Menalippe eats every day. If Hippolyta sees Menalippe's frown, she doesn't acknowledge it.

Menalippe pours her queen a cup of unwatered wine. The sooner Hippolyta drinks and says whatever it is she wants to say, the sooner she'll leave.

It takes many cups of wine. On the third cup, Menalippe joins her sister-in-law in drinking as well.

Hippolyta was never one to drink heavily before. Antiope had said once in way of explanation that drinking wasn't a terribly queenly thing to do. Antiope herself was the drinker of the family. But she'd been able to drink like a horse, stay sober, and fight well in the morning. In drinking competitions between the warriors, she excelled. Menalippe had never been able to keep up and the three of them together had discouraged Diana from trying.

Not that that had stopped Diana. Very little stopped Diana, truth be told.

Hippolyta is not her sister nor is she her daughter. As she silently drinks, her pour grows shaky.

In the absence of Menalippe's intervention, the spill is inevitable.

The deep purple liquid goes sloshing across the table, dripping down from the edge of the wood onto Antiope's seat.

For a moment, both Hippolyta and Menalippe watch the wine spread.

Then, Hippolyta rises. "I'll clean it," she announces.

Menalippe stands as well, pushing her seat away from the table. "No," she says. "I'll clean it. You should go."

Hippolyta slams a fist down onto the table. Menalippe's cup jumps at the impact, threatening to tip and spill as well. Her answer is swift and angry. " _Menalippe_. Let me help you."

Menalippe slowly sits back down. Drink is thick in her head. She watches her queen mop up the spilt wine with a rag. As she does so, she washes away the dust that Menalippe has left to gather. When she's done, the table is as clean as it ever was when Menalippe did not live in her house alone.

Hippolyta sits back down in her seat. She does not refill her cup.

"The council likes you," Hippolyta says.

"No one of us can afford not to like anyone," Menalippe replies.

"You seem to be able to afford not to like me," Hippolyta says.

"I'm your sister-in-law," Menalippe says. "I'm not allowed to like you."

Hippolyta's response is strained. "I don't dislike you." She pauses, picks up her empty cup, frowns that it's empty, and puts it back down. "But you're not her."

"No," Menalippe agrees. "I'm not."

[] [] []

Menalippe starts accepting Hippolyta's invitations to dinner.

Neither of them talk much during the dinners. It's for the best.

[] [] []

Constant training was how Menalippe and Antiope kept themselves from contemplating the monotony of Themyscira. Every morning before dawn they'd rise together, don their armor, and go down to the field to spar before the other Amazons arrived.

Antiope was the greatest warrior among the Amazons, always. And she could beat Menalippe, always, but she didn't. More often than not, Menalippe put Antiope on her ass in the dirt. Antiope liked to say that Menalippe didn't play fair. That she was distracting her. Antiope, in Menalippe's opinion, gave her far too much credit. Antiope was distracting herself. Antiope, however, dismissed such a distinction as illusory semantics and continued to complain.

Constant training cannot keep Menalippe from the ache of loss. Sparring with Philippus, Artemis, and the rest in sight of the tall cairns on the hill, if anything, is worse than lying alone in their bed.

Once a week, they take a day of rest. Even Amazons cannot fight forever.

Those days are the hardest.

Menalippe lacks the mental fortitude to spend an entire day chasing visions. She'll wake, sit, sort through threads, grow tired, and then walk around the island. When she returns to her home, she repeats the process. Over and over. Until the sun is near to setting and the day is done. Then, she goes to the grave on the hill and sets out food and drink, as is her duty.

She makes no progress with her vision. She knows what she's looking for, but its absence among the threads suggests that maybe she wouldn't even know it if she saw it.

A month passes.

Then, one day, as she walks the city, Menalippe finds that her feet have taken her to the steps of the library. Standing before the high marble building, she scoffs softly. Of course.

When Clio designed her library, she built it as one would a temple. The building has a flight of steps leading up to a porch with tall fluted columns. On the pediment above, dead Athena and the muses look down on all who would seek wisdom. The structure proper has no windows so as to protect the scrolls within from light.

Nothing that is good in the world need be protected from light and keeping the interior so dark, Menalippe thinks, seems to encourage the catastrophe of fire.

Needless to say, Menalippe has not ventured within the library since she helped to build it.

That is doubtless why Clio, scribbling away on some parchment at a desk near the front door, stares in such open shock when Menalippe enters.

Clio is scrawny compared to many of her sister Amazons. Her skin is somewhat pale and her green eyes look oddly the wrong size behind her large spectacles. She wears a pale blue chiton and goes barefoot within her domain. Her fingers are stained with ink. Around her neck is a small amulet, an onyx cameo of her patron, Athena, set in silver.

"What are you doing here?" Clio asks. She doesn't get up from her desk.

It takes Menalippe's eyes a moment to adjust to the dim light within the library. The entire place smells musty. Her nose itches, like she's going to sneeze. "I need," she starts, "A scroll."

The way Clio stares at her from behind her spectacles can only be described as pity.

Menalippe clears her throat. "About a cave."

Clio makes an encouraging noise.

"It's a dark cave," Menalippe says. "I'm holding a torch and my spear and I'm bleeding."

"The other oracles would probably be able to help you better than I can," Clio says.

Menalippe grimaces. She trusts her own Sight, even when it fails her, more than the cryptic words of prophecy. "I don't think so."

"Well," says Clio, "There are only two kinds of caves that authors bother writing about. Three, if you count Plato. But the two are mines and entrances to the house of Hades. Which do you think you want?"

The air in the library is cool compared to the sunny day outside. It's not as cold as Menalippe suddenly feels though. The way Clio's watching her, she thinks the librarian probably sees how she's gone tense. Clio doesn't comment on it though. "Whatever you have on Hades," Menalippe says.

When Menalippe leaves the library, she's burdened with two scroll boxes and instructions to come back if she doesn't find what she's looking for in them. As a warrior, she takes great pride in her physical strength. The boxes are incredibly heavy. They're made of some kind of metal so as to resist fire. Clio carried them as if they weighed nothing and Menalippe is determined to get them back to her house acting as if they weighed nothing. It is a long way back to her house and by the time she arrives she's covered in sweat. She sets the scrolls down on her table and then goes to wash.

When she feels clean enough again to touch the scrolls, Menalippe sits down. She takes the first scroll from the first box and unrolls it.

Menalippe is not the swiftest of readers. She goes word by word, reading out loud. The scroll, she thinks, might be older than she is. It goes in the way of an ox's plough, driving first left to right and then right to left on alternating lines. It tells her nothing she didn't already know.

Caves are the entrances to the underworld, the house of Hades. They lie in murk and in gloom and thick mists gather where the border between realms thins to a door. There was such a doorway in Lerna, south of Argos. There was another doorway at Tainaron on the Laconian Gulf. And there was one, possibly the greatest of them all, in Hierapolis near Pamukkale.

Though Hades had few followers among the living, a cult in Hierapolis had housed him when he came up from his dark realm to walk on the earth.

None of this helps Menalippe and when the sun sets and she goes out to Antiope's grave with her offering of soft bread and dark wine, she has learned nothing at all.

[] [] []

When Menalippe returns with the boxes of scrolls to Clio's library, Clio has another pair of boxes waiting for her.

"I spoke with the other oracles," Clio says. "We thought these might help you."

Menalippe thanks her half-heartedly, takes the scrolls, and returns to her house.


	3. Haloa

**Better Days to Come**

 **Chapter Two: Haloa  
**

* * *

Before Menalippe was an Amazon, she was a lost soul wandering the banks of the Styx with no obol for Charon.

And before she was a lost soul, she was a human woman.

So it is and so it was for all of the Amazons.

But that was so very long ago. It was so long ago that it rarely haunts Menalippe now. Only in the darkest of dreams. In her waking hours, the memory is only a faint whisper.

In all her time with her Antiope, she never spoke of what came before.

Antiope was the noonday sun blazing so brightly as to dispel all thoughts of night.

Some comparisons, however ready, are not such that they can be made.

[] [] []

The first time Hippolyta comes down to the fields to train after Diana's departure, no one expects her. She's wearing full armor, carries a sword and a shield, and her intention is clear. Menalippe steps away from supervising a series of archery drills. As _strategos_ , the queen is her responsibility.

To Menalippe's annoyance, the drills stop. The Amazons clear a place for queen and _strategos_ and then they settle in to watch.

Menalippe and Hippolyta haven't sparred since before Diana's birth. Hippolyta hadn't wanted her daughter to get any ideas watching her mother fight.

It would be a mistake to underestimate Hippolyta though, even if she rarely trains.

Hippolyta was almost Antiope's equal.

Menalippe raises her spear in salute to her queen. Hippolyta acknowledges her with a regal nod. They both settle into guard positions and begin to circle. The grass whispers as they move.

Menalippe holds her weapon in both hands, spaced evenly, balanced. She hears the pounding of her heart. She takes a deep breath in, releases it slowly. She is not one of the warriors who runs on naught but adrenaline and rage. She needs calm to fight well.

Hippolyta strikes first. She darts forward, raising her shield to block the movement of Menalippe's spear as she drives her sword forward.

The reason Menalippe favors spears is that they can be used from nearly any angle. Though Hippolyta's flank is covered by her shield, Menalippe can step back and bring up the butt of her spear, aiming to catch her opponent in the gut as she charges.

Dirt sprays.

Hippolyta dodges and keeps charging. Grunting, Menalippe sweeps her spear in a crossways motion to clear Hippolyta away. Hippolyta drops herself to the ground, going under the spear and turning her charge into a sliding tackle, booted feet colliding with Menalippe's armored shins.

Almost immediately after impact, Hippolyta is pushing herself up.

Menalippe staggers. She uses her spear, rammed into the ground, to support herself and to simultaneously block the strike of Hippolyta's sword aimed at her thighs. She makes to kick Hippolyta in the face, but her queen blocks the kick with her shield and then slams the shield into the back of Menalippe's knees. Even clutching her spear, Menalippe can't stay upright. She lands heavy on her back, barely managing to tuck her chin in time.

No sooner has she hit the ground than Hippolyta has her sword to Menalippe's neck. "Yield," Hippolyta orders.

Staring up at the cloudless blue sky, Menalippe lets go of her spear and raises empty hands, index fingers extended in an athlete's submission. "I yield."

Hippolyta offers her a hand up and she takes it. When she's on her feet again, she steps back into the crowd to join the other captains.

"Philippus," Hippolyta calls.

The dark-skinned captain steps forward. Like Hippolyta, she carries a sword and a shield. Trained warrior, she drops into a fighter's stance.

Hippolyta beats Philippus in less time than it took her to take down Menalippe, and then does the same to the rest of Menalippe's captains. Nursing her bruised pride, Menalippe notes that Hippolyta does not offer any of the others a hand up.

When she's done with them all, Hippolyta wipes a bit of dirt off her armor. "I'll see you at dinner tonight," she says to Menalippe. Then, in a storm of white and gold, she sweeps off back to her palace.

Watching their queen depart, Philippus breaths out, " _Hera_."

"No," Artemis says. "Hippolyta."

[] [] []

At dinner, reclining in Hippolyta's _triklinion_ , Menalippe notes that her pride wasn't the only thing bruised. Despite wearing greaves, her shins sport blossoming dark purple marks where Hippolyta's armored boots collided with them. Like Antiope, Hippolyta hits like an elephant.

"You think too linearly when you fight," Hippolyta says.

"I know," Menalippe says. She does. It's the same thing Antiope would tell her on those rare occasions when they sparred and Antiope wasn't distracted.

"Fix it," Hippolyta says.

Menalippe grimaces. "Yes, my queen."

[] [] []

Menalippe rises before dawn the next day and descends to the field. She stops by the grave and sets out a few figs.

She will need Antiope's help, she thinks.

Then, she walks down the hill, picks up her spear, and thinks about fighting less linearly.

[] [] []

Another pair of scroll boxes comes and goes.

[] [] []

Sometimes, to break the monotony of drills with bow and spear and sword, the Amazons swim. Together, the warriors troop down from the field to the beach at the base of the cliffs of Themyscira. The waters are clear and warm.

Artemis carries a stack of discuses, which Menalippe hurls out as far as she can, committing them to the waves. There are thirty in all. The warriors are tasked with retrieving as many as they can.

As her sisters strip off their heavy armor and leap into the sea, Menalippe lingers on the beach.

The Amazons were shaped from clay and the Five drew them up from beneath the waters of the Axeinos, but Menalippe doesn't much like diving down into the ocean. The other Amazons liken diving to returning to the embrace of a mother. That is not how Menalippe would describe the experience. She doesn't much like the sea.

But she can't stay on the beach forever. She is _strategos_. She cannot shirk her own orders.

Menalippe removes her armor and places it high on the beach where the creeping waves won't reach it. Then, she wades into the water.

Sunlight fills the waters around Themyscira. Even some distance from the shore, it's easy to see the sandy ocean floor. Marine life scuttles about, startled by the intrusion of the Amazon swimmers searching for the discuses. Here a crab, there a sea urchin, here a starfish.

The most effective way to retrieve the bronze disks is to carry a heavy rock and walk along the bottom of the sea.

Menalippe does not do this. Instead, she surfaces, dives, surfaces, and dives again. So long as it's all a game, she'll trade efficiency for not feeling pulled into the deep.

Some of the Amazons are incredible swimmers and the thirty discuses are returned to the beach in short order. There's little will among them to go back up to the fields so Menalippe allows them to take the rest of the afternoon to swim.

Keeping her head above the water at the surface isn't such a hardship, so she stays as well. Idle, she sets off farther from the beach, intending to circle the island. It's easy enough to do on foot and she's strong enough to swim this course without fear of tiring, though it will take all the rest of the day. In the past, every time she's swum the island, it's been with the rest of the Amazons ahead of her and Antiope behind her, shouting some kind of encouraging hogwash. It's a far different experience making the lap at a leisurely pace with only a few others nearby, swimming equally slowly.

It's almost calm. Almost tranquil. As calm and tranquil as the sea can ever be.

The water is warm and the sea breeze is cool.

The gods who made Themyscira were masters of their craft.

Menalippe is on the far side of the island where the shadows are long when she sees the cave.

It's a small thing, the entrance, at least. She would have missed it if she weren't thinking so much about caves.

Slowing her pace, she turns in the water, bringing herself closer to the cave mouth. The light isn't such that she can see into it. Treading water, she squints and—

She spins her spear, dragging the steel tip across the throat of the harpy. Blood sprays. The monster crashes to the cave floor with a sick crunch of flesh and bone. Her torch has fallen to the ground and is spluttering, on the edge of dying. She dives down, snatching it up, trying to save the flame. All around, the beating of wings fills the air. More harpies are coming. The light of her torch dims.

Everything dims.

Everything is black.

[] [] []

Menalippe awakens on a beach, not the one she departed from.

Red-haired Areto is over her, face twisted in worry. " _Strategos_?"

Menalippe means to speak, but instead she coughs, spitting up salt water. She must have gone under during her vision. It was a good thing she hadn't been swimming alone. After expelling several more gulps of water, Menalippe manages, "Vision."

Areto clearly wants to ask. Menalippe clearly doesn't want to answer.

Menalippe rolls over onto all fours. "Thank you," she says. "I'm going back now."

[] [] []

When Menalippe reaches the beach where she left her armor, there's still some light in the sky. She dries herself as best she can and dresses. The other Amazons are still in the water, but she leaves them now. She goes straight to the library.

When she enters, dripping wet still, Clio looks scandalized.

Menalippe ignores Clio's abject horror. "There's a cave on the far side of the island," she says. "What's in it?"

"I'm a historian," Clio says, tone frosty. She's not looking at Menalippe so much as she's looking at the puddle of sea-water accumulating under Menalippe. "I think spelunking is rather your field of expertise instead of mine."

"I want every scroll you have about Themyscira," Menalippe says.

Clio pushes her spectacles higher up on her nose and crosses her arms. "You haven't returned the last two boxes of scrolls I gave you, _strategos_."

Menalippe crosses her arms too. She stands silent, unmoving, still dripping. Her message is clear. She will continue to drip in Clio's library until she gets what she wants.

In a huff, Clio sets down her quill. "Fine," she says. "But if any of these scrolls return damaged, I expect you to copy them yourself."

Menalippe glares.

Clio rolls her eyes before disappearing into the depths of the library.

[] [] []

Three boxes of scrolls is rather a lot to carry. Menalippe wonders, after having to set them down several times on her way back to her home, if, given that Themyscira is timeless, she's really in such a rush about the cave.

[] [] []

Hippolyta's visit shouldn't come as a surprise, given that there were witnesses to Menalippe going under from her vision, but the knock at her door startles her anyway. She's deep in a scroll about the island's geography and it takes her a moment to find her bearings being so suddenly removed from her work.

Hippolyta doesn't wait for Menalippe to answer the door. She opens it. Standing in the threshold, wearing her gold and white, she surveys the disaster that is Menalippe's home. Scrolls litter what is normally a tidy living space. Scroll boxes lie tipped over, spilling their contents across the floor.

Hippolyta frowns. "Does Clio know what you're doing to her children?"

Menalippe blinks, then looks around at the condition of her home. "Probably not," she says, thinking of Clio's face when she arrived in the library dripping wet.

"Do I know what you're doing?" Hippolyta asks.

Menalippe sighs and rubs her temples. She's been staring at ink scribbles for hours and her eyes are tired.

" _Strategos_ ," Hippolyta prompts.

"Visions," Menalippe says. "I've had visions. I don't know what they mean."

Hippolyta moves a pile of scrolls from her chair to the floor and sits down. "What do you see?" There's a slight edge of worry to her voice. "Is it anything relating to Dodona's prophecies? She's been making more of them of late."

"I saw myself," Menalippe replies. "In a cave, fighting harpies."

Hippolyta doesn't speak as she lifts up several scrolls, checking their titles. As she reads them, she frowns. Then, she stands again and begins to put the scrolls away into their boxes. She does it with a level of force that Clio would not approve of.

"I'm using those," Menalippe protests.

Hippolyta shuts the lid of one of the boxes and latches it. "She's dead, Menalippe," Hippolyta says. "She's at rest now."

"I know that," Menalippe snaps. Who cleaned and anointed the body? _She did_. Who led the mourners, singing her _go_ _ö_ _s_? _She did_. Who wakes up every morning to a bed too large and too empty? _She does_.

Hippolyta inhales, then lets out a long sigh. She straightens, drawing herself up regally. "Menalippe, please leave these scrolls and come to dinner."

Menalippe thinks about refusing. Of course she does. But she rolls up the scroll she was reading and stands. "Yes, my queen," she says.

The future isn't urgent.

Together, they walk up to the palace.

It's long past dinner time when they arrive, but it's the day before the day of rest and so the time matters little. The _triklinion_ is laid out for them already, though the food is cold. They both take their places, Hippolyta at the head of the table and Menalippe beside her.

Swimming has left Menalippe hungrier than she realized. So lost in her work, she hasn't eaten save for a handful of nuts when she returned from the library. Reclining on her couch, she wolfs down the food on the table. Even cold, it's rich and filling. All the while, she watches Hippolyta drink.

Hippolyta is reaching for her tenth cup when Menalippe snatches it from the table. "Stop."

Hippolyta's face is flush, either from wine or anger. Menalippe doesn't know which and doesn't much care. "You have no right," Hippolyta says. She pushes herself up into a sitting position.

Menalippe sits up as well. She's been drinking as well, but far less. _Slightly less_. _One cup less_. She glowers at her queen. "She's dead. I'm not her. You're not her either."

Hippolyta snorts and collapses back into the couch. Instead of reclining, she just lies there. "I'm trying," she says.

Menalippe sets Hippolyta's cup on the table and also lays herself down. The ceiling is a mural, a painting showing the birth of the Amazons from the sea. Aphrodite takes center stage, caressing and breathing life into –

Menalippe has never actually examined the ceiling in the palace _triklinion_ before. The Amazon in the painting looks an awful lot like her without her clothes. "The ceiling," she says.

"It was Antiope's idea," Hippolyta mutters. "She insisted. Did she never tell you?"

Menalippe rolls over, grabs Hippolyta's cup, and drinks it all. Then she looks back at the ceiling. It's easy to find Antiope in the mural, not far off, staring and grinning. Menalippe shuts her eyes and covers them with her hand for good measure. "No. Never."

"No one ever looks at the ceiling in here," Hippolyta says. She's slurring slightly.

Menalippe opens her eyes slightly and peeks through her fingers. "Did she pose for that? I didn't pose for that."

"Pallas has a good imagination," Hippolyta replies.

"You let Diana eat in here," Menalippe says.

"She thinks all babies come from clay," Hippolyta says.

Menalippe closes her eyes again. "No."

"What."

Menalippe lets her arms flop down beside her. She opens her eyes and she stares at Antiope's grinning face. "She asked her Aunt Antiope why there weren't any other clay babies on the island. Antiope panicked and sent her to Clio. Clio gave her a scroll. Clio gave her twelve scrolls."

Hippolyta groans. "I let her go away with… with that _man_." There's a weighty pause. "I'm too young to be a grandmother."

"I thought you liked children," Menalippe says.

"One was enough," Hippolyta answers. "Don't look," she adds. "And if you do look, don't tell me what happens." She pauses again. "Is there anything else you want to tell your queen, _strategos_?"

Menalippe blows out, a sort of whistling sigh. "Stop trying," she says.

"What?" Hippolyta asks.

"Stop trying to be her," Menalippe says.

The painter, Pallas, captured Antiope's grin perfectly. Warm. Mischievous. Full of life.

"You're my sister's widow," Hippolyta says. "I have to."

"No," Menalippe says. "No, you don't. And you can't."

Menalippe hears movement. She glances over in time to see Hippolyta reclaim her cup and pour herself more wine. "From the way she talked, I could never compare to her in bed anyway," Hippolyta grumbles.

Menalippe adds another adjective to the painted Antiope's grin. Lecherous. "Probably not," she says. "But if you didn't kill me for her grave, I don't think you'll marry me, _kyrios_."

"You're not my type," says Hippolyta.

"You like fathers," Menalippe says. "All-fathers, preferably."

Over on her couch, Hippolyta rolls to face towards the far wall. "One time," she says. "Once."

Menalippe chuckles and closes her eyes once more. She's very tired. "The man," she starts, "He was above average. The grandchildren would be comely."

Hippolyta groans.

They both reach for more wine.

[] [] []

When Menalippe wakes, it's to a pounding headache. She feels as if there's an elephant standing on her head. In her head, maybe.

Slowly, the world swims into focus. The first thing Menalippe sees is Antiope.

Leering.

Menalippe swears.

On the couch next to her, Hippolyta groans. "Quiet." It sounds more like a plea than an order.

Slowly so as not to destroy herself, Menalippe sits up. She wants to puke. She doesn't want to puke on Hippolyta's mosaic floor. It's a very tame mosaic of the zodiac. Masterfully put together. Blessedly uninteresting. Unlike the ceiling.

Unlike Antiope.

"I have to go," Menalippe says.

[] [] []

Menalippe pukes into Mnemosyne's rosebushes.

For all that she loves plants, Mnemosyne is a terrible gardener and hasn't improved in all the thousands of years they've been on the island. That is to say – the roses needed to be watered anyway.

[] [] []

When harvest season comes, all the warriors put down their weapons and join their other sisters in the fields. Themiscyra knows no true winter, but the Amazons grow their crops according to the patterns they remember. Wielding a great scythe against grain is hard and heavy work. It is a motion far different from the strokes of a weapon of war.

At the end of every day, Menalippe returns home with knots in the muscles of her back that she can't reach. Sitting on the floor, trying to massage the hard to get to places with the edge of a chair, she stares at the piles of scrolls that litter her house. In the months she's spent pouring over them, she's found nothing noteworthy. All that's changed since she began the endeavor is that she can read slightly faster now.

If Antiope were to walk through the door, Menalippe thinks, she'd greet Menalippe and then she'd immediately set to work cleaning.

Left alone, Menalippe has made a mess of their house.

[] [] []

In the fields, the Amazons sing. It gives rhythm to the work. Their songs are old, older than Themyscira. These songs are sung by every woman in the fields, voices mingling into one. It's been thousands of years that they've come to these fields with their scythes. At times, a verse will change or someone will launch into a ballad of their own devising. But the songs are not just for rhythm. The songs are to remember.

[] [] []

Even dead, the Amazons honor their gods. Over the years, Hippolyta has changed some rituals to better suit the childhood she wished for her daughter, but the not even Hippolyta could cut away at the essence of them. The harvest began with a feast and it will end with a feast as well.

As the knots in Menalippe's back multiply, anxiety worms its way up from her stomach and into her heart and head. She has no desire to go to the threshing grounds and step onto the _halos_ without Antiope by her side.

In the years past, so many years past, they'd made a custom of going to the _halos_ together. They'd arrive in the hills at midday for the feast and when the feasting was over, they'd go down onto the _halos_. Antiope liked to spend the entire walk there cheerfully telling Menalippe how the night would end. Her goal was to make her wife blush. After a thousand years, she considered it a challenge worthy of her peerless talents. After thousands of years, she never failed. She could be very creative when she wanted to be.

On the _halos_ , they'd drink and they'd dance.

In the sea of Amazons, they'd lose one another.

They'd dance with other women.

By the end of the night though, Antiope would find Menalippe. Then, she'd make good on her words.

Antiope was so full of pride about so many things. Keeping her promises was one of them.

[] [] []

When the feast comes, Menalippe does not join her sisters.

She doesn't think that long dead Demeter will mind so much.

There's an old hoplite helmet with a red crest in their armor room that she takes and fills with fruits and cheese. She carries that in one hand. In her other hand, she takes a jug of dark wine. Dressed in an off-white tunic and sandals, she goes down to the field and then up to the cairns on the hill. She sets out half the food as a dinner at the foot of Antiope's stele and then begins to eat her own.

In the distance, she can hear the drums and cymbals from the _halos_.

The sun is low on the horizon, but sunset is still a time off. It will be a long night for her sisters.

The air is still. This is likely for the best. Were there some breeze, Menalippe might trick herself into thinking she is not alone.

She is alone.

And she is lonely.

In Antiope's absence, she is very lonely.

Menalippe drinks deeply of the wine she's brought and then pours an equal amount out as libation onto the earth. She sets the still-heavy jug down beside her and closes her eyes.

Old stories tell of how, on the far bank of the Styx, the old dead receive the new dead and families are reunited.

The death of Poseidon did not erase the sea.

The passing of Zeus did not stop storms from rolling across the open skies.

And so the house of Hades still sits, cavernous, beneath the earth.

Can she See so far?

The threads stretch out infinitely. Some are thick. Some are thin. They interlace in a sort of weaving, but she can discern neither warp nor weft. Such order is not the nature of the many things that may come. She brushes against what seems to her the strongest and brightest thread, the most likely of all her outcomes, and she follows it.

She Sees herself on Themyscira, never growing old. There are a few disruptions, mostly involving Diana, but by and large what she sees is static. And she finds no end to it.

She follows the thread as far as her mind will allow and then releases it. She does not know how far it has taken her, but she suspects that she's perceived as many years to come as she has already lived. Free from old age, only a violent death could take her. And she will not meet a violent end.

Opening her eyes again, Menalippe takes another draught of wine. She has no desire to live so long. If she had all those years with Antiope? Then yes, for Antiope's sake. But without her? No.

Dark thoughts swirl as the sun dips into the western sea.

The first time she Saw Antiope's death, she didn't see the death. She only Saw the body lying on the sand. The Five crafted Menalippe as a warrior. She knew death well enough to recognize its unnatural stillness.

For years after, she'd searched, desperately, among the threads, for some way that she might nudge Fate onto a different course. But every end she found was worse than the last and all those ends haunted her waking hours and stalked her nightmares.

Then, finally, she told Antiope.

And Antiope told her to stop looking.

Antiope had wiped the tears from Menalippe's eyes and then the tears from her own and then, voice trembling, she'd said that they'd always known they would die. From the moment they were born, they'd known. If she died in battle for Diana, then the _kleos_ that would pass to Menalippe would be great indeed. Antiope had tried to smile. Wasn't Menalippe glad she'd married a hero?

Menalippe laughed then because a good marriage is not for _kleos_ but in hopes that such an inheritance should never occur.

Antiope was not a woman of peace and to the end she did not make peace with the thought of leaving Menalippe alone. To rest in the house of Hades was not such a bad thing, she would say. And to die in battle instead of in bed was also not such a bad thing. But for Menalippe to sigh and to groan and to _weep_. This, she would not stand for.

Sitting beneath Antiope's stele, Menalippe sets her head in her hands, her elbows braced against her knees. Beside her, the jug of wine is still more than half-full. She lacks the heart to drink.


	4. Hiketeia

**Better Days to Come**

 **Chapter Three: Hiketeia**

* * *

Sparring with Philippus, Menalippe considers the anatomy of a training accident.

Philippus lunges with her sword. Menalippe sidesteps and raps Philippus hard in the ribs with the butt of her spear. If this were a real duel, she could have done the same with the point instead.

Accidents are rare among the Amazon warriors, but they do occur. Over the years, yearning for something more than sport, the warriors have gradually increased the complexity of their motions and the ferocity of their strikes in their endless training. However, the waters of Themyscira are such that mishaps have never ended in maiming or death. But there's a first time for everything.

Philippus rolls as she hits the ground and is quickly back on her feet. They circle. They've been trading blows for some time and they're both breathing hard.

If Menalippe died in a training accident, it would be unfortunate but, in the end, an accident.

Menalippe raises her spear to strike, exposing her right flank. Philippus immediately darts inside the reach of Menalippe's spear point, homing in on the opening.

Death in a training accident would fix Menalippe's problems quite handily.

At the last possible moment, Menalippe spins, ducking down and extending her leg to sweep Philippus' feet out from under her. Philippus goes crashing to the ground once more. She's got more muscle than the average Amazon. She does not go down with grace.

It would be a strange thing indeed for the Amazon's most prescient oracle and second greatest warrior to die in an accident. Hippolyta would be furious. So too would Antiope.

Menalippe brings her spear back into a guard position and waits for Philippus to get up again.

[] [] []

Standing on the beach and bracing to hurl a discus out to sea, Menalippe ponders drowning.

It would be a far more plausible accident than a slip of the spear.

She has established already that, should a vision come to her in the open water, she will go under.

But Menalippe doesn't much like the idea of her lungs filling with dark water as the sea pulls her down.

And such an outcome would, like a training accident, anger Antiope to no end.

[] [] []

Several times more, Menalippe searches the threads again for her own death. That she still cannot find it, not even by her own hand, suggests her dark thoughts will come to nothing.

[] [] []

Hippolyta is coming more often to the training field now.

She fights like her sister. The grace and power in her knocks Menalippe, Philippus, Artemis, and all the rest onto their asses like a great sea-storm overtaking a fleet on open water. As the days pass, Menalippe gains nothing on her queen. She doesn't really expect to. Thousands of years and she never passed Antiope. No one did. There's no reason she should make progress against Hippolyta in a matter of days, weeks, months, even years.

The only one who shows any improvement against the fury that is Hippolyta is Philippus.

This is strange as Philippus fares no better or worse against any other opponent.

Still, her bouts with Hippolyta begin to grow longer.

At dinner, Menalippe says nothing of it. It's not her place. She is Hippolyta's sister's wife, not Hippolyta's sister.

Instead, they've taken to talking of times past.

"She was scared to talk to you," Hippolyta says as she picks up a piece of cheese. Queen, always, she puts the cheese in her mouth, chews, swallows, and washes it down with wine before continuing. "She spent an entire summer hiding every time she saw you coming."

Unlike Hippolyta, Menalippe doesn't track whether or not she's still chewing when she speaks. From around a fig, "She was bad at hiding. It wasn't in her nature."

"Thank the gods she was bad at _something_ ," Hippolyta replies.

Menalippe turns over so that she's on her back, looking up at the ceiling. There's a part of her that wants to get a bucket of paint and cover the whole of it up. The question tumbles from her mouth, "What would Antiope have done if I'd been the one to die?"

Hippolyta snorts. "For you? She'd be digging her way down to the house of Hades," she says. "Knowing her, she may even have made it there by now. She could hardly stand leaving you behind when she went on raids. She worried you'd miss her as much as she missed you."

A long silence descends. Menalippe folds her hands over the base of her sternum. If she squints, she can make it seem as though the painted Antiope on the ceiling is looking at her. The actual her, not the one entwined with Aphrodite in the mural.

Then, Hippolyta, "Would you like a shovel?"

Menalippe hums thoughtfully. "Maybe."

Hippolyta's reply is mock-serious, Menalippe thinks. "If you do start digging, don't tell me."

Menalippe answers in the same tone. "Yes, my queen."

[] [] []

Grief is as the tide, rising and falling, always present. A fact of nature.

And so perhaps it is grief that takes Menalippe to the water when next there comes a day of rest.

Menalippe goes down to the beach. She leaves her armor in her house and wears only an undyed tunic. As she passes her sisters, they greet her politely but with some surprise. She is not known for her love of the sea. When she's near to where the earth meets the water, she strips and leaves the tunic near some rocks a good way above the high tide mark.

Then, she wades into the warm surf.

In another life, Menalippe drowned.

In her blackest nightmares, she can feel large hands holding her under. The water is cold as it rushes into her lungs.

But that was a different life.

She's strong now. She cuts through the waves quickly. She swims with purpose.

She finds the cave again with little trouble. Knowing that it's there is more than half the battle. And, in the back of her head, Menalippe suspects she's read enough scrolls to know what it is. As it comes into view, Menalippe slows her pace. No one else has swum out with her. If a vision comes to her suddenly, she will have to keep her wits about her.

Her approach is cautious and she stops to tread water when she's still several horse-lengths away. She can see that the sea doesn't rise up all the way into the cave. There's a cave floor that's submerged but not deeply and a higher shelf farther back that sits above the water. The cave recedes back into darkness.

Searching for calm, Menalippe closes her eyes.

The threads are thick, less like a field of threads forming cloth and more like a few ropes – many threads twined together such that they all run to the same place. Rarely does she perceive such a convergence.

Menalippe takes a deep breath of warm sea air. She takes up in her mind the thickest of the ropes.

She sees herself.

Dead. Broken. Her left arm is broken and white bone pokes through the skin. Her eyes are glassy and stare blindly up. Her face and her throat are rent by the deep gouging parallel cuts of an animal's claws. She's covered in blood. Her stomach has been ripped open.

A harpy descends and begins to pick at her entrails. It's like watching a butcher gut a pig, but with a fraction of the respect.

The sudden and immediate need to vomit rips Menalippe away from the vision. Her breakfast comes up in short order, leaving a slick of sick-smelling bile on the surface of the water.

Shaking, Menalippe swims to the nearest shore. It's a rocky beach with no good land access to the rest of the island. The pebbles of the ground bite at Menalippe's feet. She finds a large stone and sits down on it, dropping her head into her hands. Water drips from her dark hair.

For an hour she remains nearly motionless on her rock, listening to the crash of waves against the cliffs and shore.

So she's found her death. The one she's been searching for. A violent end to an endless life. But she wasn't searching for her death. Not this time.

She takes a steadying breath, inhaling deeply and then releasing. The air smells of salt. She closes her eyes again. This time, she approaches the rope of threads with care.

She watches herself arm and then row a small boat to the cave mouth. She moors it and goes into the darkness.

While all her other visions of the cave had been crisp, this one is blurry. The act of observing can change the course of things, but once she has a thread, it won't dissolve until she releases it.

She's followed the cave down, twisting and turning, and entered a great cavern when the harpies attack. They strike her from behind. The fight is over quickly.

In the physical world, Menalippe grinds her teeth. After seeking a vision of her death for so long, she doesn't much like watching it now. And, for the first time in a long time, it's not what she's looking for. She curls her toes in the pebbled sand and clenches and unclenches her hands.

 _Again_.

This time, she defeats the harpies. She knows they'll come from behind and so she's ready. She drives them off. It's not difficult. Harpies aren't fighters, they're scavengers. When their prey strikes back, they retreat. She continues her journey into the cave.

At the far end of the harpy cavern is a great gate. It's made of some dark metal and it's easily four times Menalippe's height. It stands shut. Menalippe sets down her spear and her torch. She grasps the enormous door rings, one in each hand, and pulls. The gate swings slowly outwards, slowly open.

Beyond is another dark cavern. It is so vast Menalippe cannot see where it might end. She sees no ceiling and no far wall. The small circle of light that her torch casts is swallowed by the inky night.

She takes up her spear and torch and advances through the gate cautiously. Before her, some distance off, is a cliff with crumbling stairs cut into it. She descends, using her spear to test each step before trusting her weight to it. To her right, the cliff is glassy black obsidian, jagged edges sharp enough to cut to ribbons any unfortunate who might slip against it. To her left is a yawning abyss.

Watching herself, Menalippe tries to count the steps but loses track sometime after two thousand.

The path goes seemingly forever.

But it doesn't.

The base of the cliff is a pebbled beach. Grey waters lie softly against the dark earth. There is silence here. There is stillness here. There is, too, light, of a strange unearthly quality. It is like the light of a darkly overcast day.

Menalippe suddenly feels very cold. She has been on this shore before.

In the distance, a figure emerges from the mists that rise from the waters. A ferryman punting his craft to shore. He is hunched, wizened, twisted. His skin is drawn tight over angular bones. His eyes are blacker than the darkest night and lit with the gleaming of dead stars. Charon grins, showing a mouth full of stained teeth, and he looks at Menalippe. Not at the Menalippe before him, but the one watching.

"It's been a long time since I took a hero across the river looking for their beloved," he says.

Wordless, Menalippe produces a branch of some tree, its leaves gold, the first touch of spring. In the vision, her face is grim.

Charon takes the branch and beckons her to join him on the skiff. "I should warn you," he says. "Hades hasn't kept order in his house in a very long time."

Menalippe leaves her torch on the riverbank and steps onto the boat. It dips under her weight, threatening to sink below the waterline. It wasn't meant for the living. Grimacing, Menalippe seats herself near the center of the craft. It's small enough that she can cling to the sides. Her knuckles are white.

Charon takes his pole and he pushes the rickety skiff away from the shore and into the mists.

Menalippe's vision does not follow. The torch on the ground sputters out.

In the waking world, Menalippe opens her eyes.

The tide has come in and the waves are lapping at her feet.

Though she can't see it, there's a feral grin stretched across her face.

[] [] []

"Voyages to the underworld," Menalippe explains to Clio.

Clio looks at Menalippe from over the top of her spectacles. The aura of judgment is strong indeed. "You have five boxes of my scrolls," she says. "Return some of them."

This is likely for the best. There's little room at Menalippe's table for any more scrolls.

[] [] []

Menalippe scoops up scrolls about Themysciran weather, about Themysciran agriculture, about the formation of stalagmites in sea-caves, and puts them away in their boxes. She makes some attempt at organizing, but she's not sure how best to articulate the difference between a scroll on bat colonies and a scroll on bat diets. Best leave that to Clio.

Truth be told, she hasn't read either scroll about bats.

[] [] []

Menalippe heaves the boxes of scrolls onto Clio's desk. "Now?"

Clio ducks under her desk and takes out another scroll box. She places it next to the ones Menalippe is returning. For a moment, she keeps her hands on it. She fixes Menalippe with a stern look. "You're a fighter," she says. "These boxes are heavy and your house is a long way from here. I want this back before you do anything unwise."

Menalippe thinks about protesting that she intends to do nothing unwise. It would be very hard, however, to make Clio believe something that Menalippe herself does not. So instead she nods. "Of course."

[] [] []

Dragging herself through scrolls about Themysciran agriculture has made Menalippe a swifter reader than she was only a few months prior. With some pride, she notes that she can now read without speaking, though the turning script of the older scrolls still gives her pause.

Orpheus. Theseus. Castor and Pollux. Herakles. Persephone. Alcestis.

These are tales she's heard before. Who doesn't know of Orpheus? Of Theseus? Of Herakles? It might even be said that Menalippe knew more of Herakles that most – though mostly she knew him as the first of Hippolyta's disastrous affairs with men.

Menalippe lingers on the accounts of Persephone. Persephone, the Amazons still honor. The daughter of Demeter. Kore. Every year, they still sing to her as they bury new seeds in the earth. That she, in all her dread might, fell with the other gods against Ares is still nearly beyond belief. How could one have prevailed against so many, and so many of far greater majesty?

But Menalippe isn't searching these scrolls for answers to unfathomable questions or for stories every Amazon knows.

She's searching for something more.

And she finds it.

[] [] []

Menalippe meets Philippus' sword with her shield. She throws her weight into the block, shoving her opponent's weapon up and out to the side and leaving Philippus' open for a fatal thrust of Menalippe's spear.

Artemis' blunted axe catches Menalippe in the ribs, knocking her off her feet. She hits the ground.

The world spins as Artemis' face swims into view over her. " _Strategos_?"

Menalippe stifles a groan as she pushes herself up. She doesn't think anything is cracked or broken, but her entire body is one giant bruise. She wipes thick sweat from her brow. She needs to fight less linearly. She picks up her spear from where it fell. "Again."

It's good to have purpose.

[] [] []

Sitting in their armory, cleaning her shield and inspecting her other armaments, Menalippe remembers teaching Antiope how to care for her own armor.

When the Five first created them, Antiope had preferred to ride and to shoot. She'd treasured her bow, a beautiful thing of horn whose tips curved forward, and she'd loved her favorite horse almost as much as she'd loved Menalippe. Armor, however, had confounded her. She'd leave her bronze and leather cuirass out in the mud for Menalippe to trip over on her way to Antiope's tent.

She'd said she didn't need armor. The enemy can't hurt you if they're dead. She'd grinned ear to ear every time she said it.

It was not a terribly comforting thing to hear for those who cared for her.

Although as good a horsewoman as most Amazons, Menalippe herself had always preferred to fight on foot. She'd excelled as a hoplite in the ranks of a phalanx. Watching Antiope neglect her armor had aggrieved Menalippe to no end. One day, Antiope would need her armor and then it would break and fall off her for want of care.

So Menalippe had set out to address the problem.

And, going to Antiope with cloth and oil had always made for a good prelude to other things.

Menalippe runs a whetstone along the edge of her knife and tests the blade.

[] [] []

In the mornings, Menalippe rises before the sun. She dons her armor and takes up her spear and shield. And then she runs. She laps the city.

By the time her captains and the rest of the warriors troop onto the training fields, she's already tired.

It's something she needs to fix.

[] [] []

Menalippe makes sure to return Clio's scrolls.

As Menalippe sets the box down on Clio's desk, the librarian worries at her necklace of Athena, rubbing the pad of a thumb over the goddess' cameo. Looking at the box of scrolls instead of Menalippe, Clio says, "She used to visit the library, you know. On her own. Not just that one time with Diana. And… not often. But more often than…" Clio trails off again and shrugs. "You. For example."

Menalippe winces slightly. On second thought though, she feels as if of late she's spent far more time than the average Amazon in Clio's library. She refrains from mentioning this.

"I wish you a safe journey," Clio mumbles, still not looking at Menalippe. "I'd like her back too."

Menalippe bows her head slightly. "Thank you."

[] [] []

Menalippe blocks Areto's spear with her own. As she does, she spins, bashing her shield into Philippus' face.

Artemis is charging from behind.

Menalippe pulls her spear back slightly and drops to one knee, giving her a better angle to ram the butt of her spear into Artemis' gut.

Even before Artemis hits the ground, Menalippe is back up on her feet, dodging Areto's strike. Areto has closed distance, taking away Menalippe's advantage of fighting with both shield and spear when Areto has only a spear.

Menalippe slams her armored forehead into Areto's, stunning her, forcing her to stagger backwards, barely able to stay on her feet.

Breathing heavily, Menalippe taps the edge of her spear lightly against Areto's neck. The weapon leaves no mark.

[] [] []

So much as Themyscira has seasons, spring comes.

With the morning sun lighting the eastern horizon, Menalippe dresses in her armor and red cloak, and sets off for Hippolyta's palace. Around her, Themyscira's white stone walkways and buildings capture the light of dawn and amplify it, chasing away any thought of shadow. Like almost every day on the island, it will be a warm one.

The streets are empty. It's dawn on the day of rest.

Artemis stands guard at the palace gate. She is not the sort of commander to set others on early watches so that she might revel. When Menalippe approaches, she nods in greeting. Unusually, she is standing such that she blocks entry into the complex. Her dark eyes take in Menalippe's dress and demeanor. " _Strategos_ ," she says. She says it with weight in her voice.

"Artemis," Menalippe returns. "I've come to speak with my sister-in-law." It is both Menalippe's purpose and a subtle reminder that Menalippe is of the house that Artemis guards. None but Hippolyta can bar her entrance.

There's a moment of indecision, then, "She's in the courtyard," Artemis says. She frowns and adds, "Menalippe."

Menalippe thanks Artemis and enters the palace.

It is not until she has passed the gate, traversed the corridors of the palace, and come to the inner courtyard that leads to the bedchambers of the family that she remembers the body.

It's not there, of course.

But the image of it lying on the bier under a white shroud is seared into Menalippe's mind.

Hippolyta sits on a wooden bench. The bench is new to the courtyard. The queen wears a white tunic and her hair, though tied back and held in place by her golden crown, is sloppy. Even so, her regal bearing still speaks of her status.

Menalippe approaches, making as little noise as she can, dressed, as she is, in leather and steel. Here, more than any other part of the palace, she does not wish to disturb the quiet. She comes to a halt a few feet from Hippolyta. She bows slightly and waits to be acknowledged. She makes no effort to hide solemnity from her face.

It is with reluctance that Hippolyta looks up to Menalippe and addresses her. Like Artemis, she takes note of Menalippe's armor. " _Strategos_ ," she says. "What brings you here at this hour?"

Menalippe's dark eyes seek out Hippolyta's blue ones. "I've come to tell you that I am digging."

Hippolyta squints slightly. "Digging?"

"I have found a path to the house of Hades and I intend to walk it," Menalippe says.

There is a moment of confusion before Hippolyta understands. Menalippe can see the spectrum of emotions play out on her face. Surprise, anger, disbelief, heartbreak. Fear. Her voice quivers. " _Strategos_ , you cannot abandon your post."

Menalippe shakes her head. "I do not seek the permission of my queen," she says softly. "My life is my own. But I would ask the blessing of Antiope's sister."

Hippolyta closes her eyes. For a long time, she keeps them shut. She is as a statue, if statues could silently weep. When she opens her eyes again, instead of speaking, she rises and takes a few steps away. She stands now where the bier once was. "If you were her," Hippolyta begins, "I would not give it." Every word is weighty and slow.

"It would not be your place," Menalippe replies. Her words are not a challenge. They are a statement of bare fact.

"No," Hippolyta agrees. "I would have no blessing to give or to withhold. But it would be my place, and my duty, to stop her. And I would. _I would stop her_."

"I know," Menalippe says. She tries to speak as gently as she can. She owes Hippolyta that. She owes Hippolyta more than that, but more than that, she can't offer.

"Menalippe," Hippolyta begins. She trails off, searching for words that escape her. She turns once more towards Menalippe. She's still searching, for something, anything.

She doesn't find it.

Hippolyta reaches up and she removes her crown. She sets it down on the marble flagstones of the courtyard. Her hands tremble. She unbinds her hair. Then, she approaches.

Hippolyta first reaches out and touches Menalippe's chin. They are the same height and for a moment they are so close that Menalippe can feel Hippolyta's breath against her lips. And then Hippolyta kneels. She grasps Menalippe's knees, touches her forehead to them, kisses them, looks up again towards Menalippe's face. "Menalippe, _strategos_ of the Amazons," she says. Her voice breaks. She takes a deep breath. "My daughter has left and my sister lies dead. If ever I bled with you in the world of men, if ever I was good to you, for the sake of my sister whom you love, I beg your pity. I supplicate you. Do not leave me."

Looking up at Menalippe's face, as she speaks, Hippolyta's words gain an edge of desperation.

"Please."

Words said, Hippolyta again sets her forehead against Menalippe's knees.

Menalippe takes Hippolyta by the hands and raises her up. Her mouth is dry. She licks her lips. She hesitates. She wavers. Then, "Sister, I cannot give what is beyond my power." Menalippe swallows. "But this I can give you."

Menalippe closes her eyes. She feels for the places where the threads come together.

"Diana will come home," she says. "She will come from the eastern sky with the sun at her back. Areto will spot her and swift Atalanta will bring the message to you. You will be waiting when she sets foot on Themyscira once more. You'll meet her on the beach. She will look no older but her soul will have aged. When you embrace her, you'll find your love has only grown over the years and that nothing about her has diminished. She'll have come seeking aid and you'll grieve that you do not have longer with her. Fighting beside her, you'll marvel at who she has become. And when the fighting is done, you'll have your time. You will not be alone."

Menalippe opens her eyes once more.

Hippolyta's eyes are a clear, bright blue. The same shade as Antiope's.

Hippolyta's clear, bright eyes are wet with tears.

"I thought…" Hippolyta begins. She stops herself. She tries again. "I wish…"

Menalippe waits. She gives Hippolyta time.

Hippolyta pulls away. She allows Menalippe to release her hands. "Thank you," she says. She swallows. "Will you remain here for the day or are there other preparations you must make?"

"Only the sacrifices remain," Menalippe says. "And those must be made at sundown. I can stay a while."

When they leave the courtyard together, Hippolyta's crown remains on the ground.

[] [] []

They sit side by side in the garden of the palace. They sit beneath a gnarled apple tree.

Even in Themyscira, there is an order to nature.

The branches of the tree are golden with new growth but empty of fruit.

Menalippe and Hippolyta say little to one another.

Hippolyta leans against Menalippe's shoulder.

Overhead, the sun sweeps across the vault of the sky.

[] [] []

The first prayer goes to dead Hermes.

Standing before Antiope's stele, Menalippe pours out honeyed milk, then wine, then water. The sun is setting and the shadows are long. Her hands shake.

Before her, she's set out three pyres. Not far away, Hippolyta waits with a few others – Artemis, Clio, Philippus – whom Menalippe has asked to stand witness.

Menalippe takes a deep breath and then she begins. "Hermes," she says. Her words are quiet when they should be loud. She raises her voice. "Soul-bearing Hermes, who favored me once with your Sight, alongside whom and for whom I once fought, I offer you honey and milk and wine and water to carry my words and my sacrifices into the earth. Hear me, Hermes, and accept these gifts."

The next prayer is to dread Persephone and the prayer after that goes to Hades. For Persephone, Menalippe cuts the throat of a black ewe. To Hades, she gives a black ram. The animal's limbs are bound and so the sacrifice goes easily. She allows their blood to spill out into trenches she dug in the ground and then she raises the bodies onto the pyres. When she lights the pyres, her hands are stained a deep crimson. Thick smoke rises to the empty heavens.

Then, finally, Hippolyta approaches, leading a black mare, the same horse that she offered to Menalippe when first she summoned her sister-in-law to dinner. Hippolyta has always had a gift with horses. The mare is calm as Hippolyta offers the lead to Menalippe. Menalippe takes the lead and sets a hand on the horse's warm neck, running her hand over coarse hair.

Menalippe walks with the horse to the last pyre, still unlit. Hippolyta follows her.

For this prayer, she does not raise her voice.

"Antiope. You have left me alone. Your _kleos_ is great, but it is cold. And you are cold as well, my love, to have deserted me." Menalippe adjusts her grip on the knife in her hand. It is the same knife that she prepared weeks ago for this rite. The hilt is warm with blood. "I am coming to the house of Hades for you," Menalippe says. "I ask that you watch over me in death as you did in life." She hesitates, then, "If ever you cared for me as I still care for you, grant me that I will find you."

Wordlessly, Menalippe gestures to Hippolyta.

Hippolyta has the black mare kneel.

Artemis clubs it hard enough to stun it.

Menalippe cuts its throat. She plunges the knife into the horse's neck up to the hilt and drags.

Its blood pours out into the trench. When the blood thickens and the flow becomes a trickle, the three of them heave the sacrifice onto the pyre.


	5. Katabasis

**Better Days to Come**

 **Chapter: Katabasis**

* * *

Menalippe leaves the next morning. She's already said her goodbyes and so she goes directly from her house to the dock. She wears her full armor, cleaned to a gleam. Her red cloak drapes over her shoulders. She carries her spear and her shield and in a bag she has torches as well. She's brought a cutting from Hippolyta's apple tree, its leaves the yellow-green of new growth. Just in case, she has a handful of coins with her as well.

She's already Seen that Charon will accept the branch, but she prefers to be prepared.

Following her vision, she takes the boat to the cave and moors it. She lights her torch and she advances into the darkness.

In the cave, there's a thick mist that covers the ground. Water drips along the walls. Her torch is a flame that casts flickering shadows all about the downward path. Behind her, the light from the open sea fades to nothing. Her torch does little to ward off the press of shadows. She thinks that she is in a great cavern of some sort, though she can see neither ceiling nor walls, because the clink of her armor is swallowed up by the vastness.

In the hand that does not carry the torch, she holds her spear. Her grip is tight and her palm is sweaty.

With every step, she strains to listen for the beating of wings.

Somewhere in this darkness, harpies lurk. And when they strike, they will come from behind.

Menalippe can just make out the outline of the great gate in the darkness when she _smells_ the harpies coming. The stench of decay precedes them.

Whirling, she raises her spear. She has just enough time to adjust her aim so that the swooping harpy impales itself on her weapon. The beast doesn't die instantly. Instead, it struggles, threatening to rip Menalippe's spear from her hand. She holds on tighter. The harpy screams, a bird-like screech ripping its way out of a human mouth. The sound is blood-chilling.

With a harpy stuck to her spear, Menalippe raises her torch against the next enemy.

This monster doesn't run into the torch. It breaks its dive at the last moment, veering to the side to avoid the flame. Its passing sends a wave of noxious air at Menalippe and she doubles over, gagging. She keeps her torch up though.

As quickly as they began, the harpies retreat, leaving Menalippe with their dead sister's corpse.

Menalippe steps on the body to brace as she yanks her spear free with a sick squelch.

A voice comes from the darkness. It's a mix between the squealing of an animal and the wretched tones of a wizened old woman, filled with ill-intent. "Turn back, mortal. There are no gods to close that door when you fail."

Menalippe's mouth presses into a tight line. She'll not listen to harpies. Holding her torch high and keeping her spear at the ready, she advances towards the gate.

As in her vision, it's made of some dark metal. It towers over Menalippe like the great gate of a walled city, but even larger. Not even Troy boasted such a wrought entrance.

Menalippe grips the door rings and pulls. As the door opens, a blast of cold air rushes out, making Menalippe shiver.

Menalippe takes a steadying breath. Behind her, the harpy continues to jeer. She ignores it.

Leading with her torch, she crosses the threshold into the underworld.

The stairs down the cliff to the banks of the Acheron are even more treacherous than Menalippe Saw. Every step threatens to crumble under her weight. She wants to put out a hand to hold onto the side of the cliff, but she resists. It's sharp obsidian and some force has left it jagged and broken. It would slice open her palm. She descends slowly and tries not to contemplate the fall that waits on her other side.

When she finally reaches the bottom of the cliff and steps out onto the riverbank, pebbles crunch under her boots. That crunching is the only sound along the river. The waters are still, more like a lake than any river Menalippe has ever seen.

But that's not right. Not exactly.

She has seen _this_ river before. She has seen it and she has Seen it.

When last she was here, she had nothing to pay grim Charon and so he bade her wait. For years and for years she sat beside this river, hoping for some traveler or some god to take pity on her mortal corpse.

No one ever did.

When the Five lifted her up and gave her a new life, they gave her a new body as well. A strong one, shaped from thick clay.

Somewhere, in the world of men, her first body has long since gone to dust.

There is light here, though it is weak and seems to come from no particular place. It is enough that Menalippe does not need her torch. She extinguishes it and puts it in her back. She glances upwards. Above there is a dark grey sky, a single textureless sheet of endless nothing.

When hunched Charon arrives, he speaks as he did in Menalippe's vision. He looks past her. He speaks past her. "It's been a long time since I took a hero across the river looking for their beloved," he says.

Wordless, Menalippe produces the branch of the apple tree.

Charon takes the branch and beckons her to join him on the skiff.

Menalippe steps onto the boat. It dips under her weight, threatening to sink below the waterline. It wasn't meant for the living. Grimacing, Menalippe seats herself near the center of the craft. It's small enough that she can cling to the sides. Her knuckles are white.

Charon takes his pole and he pushes the rickety skiff away from the shore and into the mists.

It is a long journey across the Acheron.

In time, Menalippe finds her courage. "Hades is gone," she says. "But you are not."

Charon scoffs and the whole craft rocks in the water. "I am no god," he says. "I am no mere personification. I am a _function_."

Menalippe nods as if she understands. "How is it that the god of the dead could die?" she asks.

Charon gives a shove with his pole and the boat bumps gently into the far bank. "We're here," he says. "You can go ask him yourself now. If you can find him."

Menalippe climbs out of Charon's boat. No sooner has she set foot on the shore than he begins taking his craft back out onto the water. He does not say farewell. That is not part of his function.

The land here is a great stretch of the sort of sand and rock upon which nothing can grow. It stretches out for as far as Menalippe can see in the gloomy half-light of the underworld. All around her is perfect silence. The air is damp and cool. She sees no forms that might be shades and no creatures that might be monsters. She sees nothing but desolation. Even the sky above is an undifferentiated grey that seems to blend with the ground where the two meet on the horizon.

Menalippe hefts her spear up to rest against her shoulder. She walks forward, away from the river.

It is good, she thinks, that food is unnecessary beneath the earth. If she must walk the whole of this empty plain, she could never have brought enough food to sustain her for so long.

The going is hard. The ground gives way with every step. Menalippe begins to use her spear as a walking stick to steady herself. Her legs grow tired.

Menalippe is an Amazon. Being tired is no reason to stop or even to slow.

In time, she comes upon the great skeleton of a three-headed dog. It lies on the plain as if it fell dead there and there has lain ever since. She counts that it takes fifty paces to pass it by.

Eventually though, she goes so far that the skeleton is nothing but a distant memory. If she were to look back, she would not be able to see it on the grey horizon.

The underworld is empty.

There are no fields of asphodel here. There are no souls here. There are no gods here.

She has been walking in a straight line.

She could turn around and walk back.

For there is _nothing_ here.

No.

She made a promise to herself and she spoke it aloud to Hippolyta. She will not return to the world of the living without Antiope by her side.

Menalippe slows her pace, then stops. She kneels, holding her spear upright as she bows her head. The rocky ground digs at her skin. She wets her lips. In the mortal world, the gods are nothing and prayers to them are vain hopes propped up by ceremony and ritual. But if the gods are anywhere, then they are here, in the land of the dead. "Great Hermes," she says. "Hermes who guides the dead. In times past, I sacrificed richly to you and you favored me with your blessing. Come to me now and guide me now and help me now. Should I return successful from-"

"Ah, sweet Menalippe, you've gotten so much worse at praying."

Menalippe is on her feet in an instant, spear leveled at bearded man, fair of skin and dark of hair. He is thin, but not overly so. His brown eyes are bright. He wears a traveler's cloak and a round hat, a straw _petasos_. In his hand he holds a tall walking stick. He offers Menalippe a not unkind smile. "When you were young, you knew so many names for me and you sang them so sweetly." He steps around her spear and approaches her, putting a finger under her chin and tilting her face up so that their eyes meet. "And I loved you dearly."

Menalippe kneels again so quickly that loose rocks spray out from the impact as she hits the ground. " _Argeiphontes_ ," she says. " _Atlantiades_. Hermes _Angelos_. _Noumios_ , _Promakhos_ , _Eriounios_." Shaking, she tries to take a steadying breath. Staring up at the man, she continues to shake. "Immortal guide with the golden wand, many-turning trickster, glad-hearted giver of joy." The words tumble out of her mouth in a fearful rush. "Glorious, splendid, mighty."

"Glorious. Splendid. Mighty," Hermes repeats. "I have not been those things in a very long time."

Try as she might, Menalippe cannot stop trembling. "My lord, I beg your aid."

Hermes gestures for her to stand as he turns slightly. "Walk with me, _strategos_."

On weak legs, Menalippe rises and moves to catch up to Hermes. They go at an angle to the direction Menalippe was traveling.

"You've come for your wife," Hermes says.

Menalippe's mouth is dry. It takes her a moment to manage, "Yes, lord."

"Despite knowing that the dead are meant to remain dead," he continues.

Menalippe answers with conviction. "If I cannot leave with her, then I will remain here."

"And why is that?" Hermes asks.

"I," Menalippe starts. She falters. Then, "I would not leave her alone."

"That's where Orpheus went wrong, you know," Hermes says. "He was selfish." He glances towards Menalippe and offers her a grin. " _Men_."

Menalippe attempts to laugh. It comes out as a choked grunt. Hermes doesn't seem to mind.

"The dead are meant to remain dead," Hermes repeats. "And this is no place for the living. This is not an easy path you've chosen. You'll need my help, I think."

There's a long pause.

Menalippe knows her god. He is a sheep-stealer. Nothing he offers is free and nothing he asks for is as simple as it seems. But whatever is in her power to give, she'll give it.

"I give because you have given," Hermes says. "And because you will give. But I'll name my price when this journey of yours comes to its end. I think that's fair, don't you?"

Menalippe's eyes narrow. She does not know what answer her god expects, but a lie here will not serve her. "Only if my journey concludes well, I think."

Hermes laughs. It is a clear, bright sound, alien to the bleak land of the dead. "I always knew there was a reason I favored you. And I favor you such now that I'll take my price only if your journey concludes well. And I will ask for something of less value to you than what you seek."

There's not much use questioning gods when they're disinclined to answer, but, still, "I don't know what I have that could pay for your aid, lord," Menalippe pushes. It has not escaped her notice that _less value to her than what she seeks_ encompasses the sum of everything she has and a good deal more as well.

The smile that Hermes offers is not unkind, but it is also not comforting. "You have nothing to fear from me, sweet Menalippe." He gestures to indicate the empty wasteland. "This in-between place bores me. My family sleeps deeply. What good is being a trickster god when you have no siblings to inflict yourself on? Let me have my fun."

"You're awake," Menalippe remarks.

Hermes shrugs. "We stand still in the crossing between the sunlit world and the house of the dead. Here, I am a _function_."

Menalippe is not satisfied with anything her god has said, but she thinks she'll get not further with him. "What aid do you offer me, lord?" Menalippe asks.

"This waste is not endless," Hermes says. "Keep walking. You'll come to a cliff and you'll descend it. At the base of the cliff is a city, filled with the dead. They fight an endless war there now, the dead whose _kleos_ was such that they remember who they are but not why they are."

"Antiope?" Menalippe prompts.

Hermes offers a shake of his head. "Her _kleos_ was great enough that she didn't much want to join the squabbles there. I took her beyond the city."

"Can you not take me to her?" Menalippe asks.

"I carry the souls of the dead," Hermes replies. "That is my function. You are still living. You must cross the city and reach the vast sea beyond. Your destination is on the far side of that sea. There are a few ships in the port of the city that can take you. You'll come to a great plain then. You'll find her out there, somewhere on the steppes."

"Somewhere?" Menalippe presses.

Hermes gives her a shrug. "This is a place of memory. She was an eastern horsewoman before she was your Antiope," he says. "She is not one of mine and she is not inclined to stay put."

"No," Menalippe agrees, "She's not."

Hermes adjusts his _petasos_. "This is not an easy journey you've undertaken, Menalippe. I wish you fortune in your endeavors. For all our sakes. Be warned – the gods of her land are hard and their ways are not our ways. Should you reach this waste again though, I will be here to guide you back."

Then, in a shimmer, he is gone.

[] [] []

She doesn't know how much time has passed when she reaches the cliff. It comes suddenly. A great crack in the land, a chasm so wide Menalippe cannot see the other side. Perhaps there is no other side. Menalippe crouches at the edge and looks down. She thinks she can see the bottom, but it may be a trick of the soft light of the place.

Menalippe grimaces. She fastens her spear to her shield on her back. She flexes her fingers. The cliff is not made of anything sharp, so far as she can tell, but such a long descent without rope will be treacherous. She takes a deep breath, then carefully twists to begin sliding herself over the side of the cliff. She finds footholds and tests them, checking if they will hold her weight. Moving slowly, she searches for a lower foothold. Her armor is a hindrance, but it can't be helped now.

In the damp air of the underworld, the stone is sometimes slick under Menalippe's hands. And, though it is cool all around her, Menalippe is soon sweating from the strain of clinging to the cliff in full armor. From time to time, she tries to wipe her hands on her clothes, but hardened leather and metal do the job poorly. The best she can do is try to scrape the moisture away on sharper rock edges. A few times her grip slips, but she never falls.

She doesn't know what might become of her if she falls. If she were to fall, she thinks, death would be the best possible outcome.

As she descends, the sounds and smells of a battle begin to reach her.

Carefully, clinging as tightly as she can to the cliff, Menalippe twists, looking over her shoulder.

Behind her, a city, the largest such city she's ever laid eyes on, stretches out.

It is a city on fire. Here and there flames and black smoke rise up. If she strains, she can hear the screams of men, the din of chaos.

So this, then, is the house of Hades in his absence.

[] [] []

When Menalippe's feet finally touch solid ground, she nearly collapses. Her limbs tremble from exertion. She looks up at the cliff she has just descended and she cannot see how far she has come. She crouches for a moment, resting, then stands. There is yet work to be done.

The way back up will be hard, but that is a problem for a later date.

The city has no walls. The air is thick with smoke and Menalippe can hear the familiar sound of men dying. Of shades dying? Of the dying dead?

Menalippe takes her spear and shield from her back.

As with any great city, the outskirts are a mess of makeshift dwellings packed with the weakest of souls. These are not the fighting shades. Here, the ghosts of men, of women, of children, of so many infant babes, lie inert, stacked one atop the other and shoved to the side of the road. Sometimes, even walking in the middle of the dirt street, Menalippe must step over them. They hardly react to her passing. Their skin is grey, the same grey as all the rest of the underworld.

The eyes of the dead can only be described as dead.

Some of them stare at her.

Menalippe clutches her spear tightly and draws her red cloak around herself. She cannot imagine Antiope as one of these shadows.

[] [] []

As she advances through the city, the noise of fighting grows louder and louder. She finds no streets that will take her away from the chaos and still towards her destination. So she continues forward.

[] [] []

It is a strange thing, battle without blood.

Antiope would enjoy this sterile carnage, Menalippe thinks. An endless melee free from the despair of losing friends, free from crimson mud sucking at the feet, free from the smell of shit and terror. Menalippe half expects to turn a corner and see Antiope neck deep in the brawling of this necropolis.

Menalippe spins, swinging her spear in an arc so that the point drags across the throat of an attacking shade.

She had thought to slip past the melee in the city square, but the combatants recognized neither friend nor foe.

The ghost she struck down dissolves into nothing, a phantom of mist returning to mist.

These enemies, this battle – the enemies are shadows, the battle is a shadow, the entire city is a shadow. She moves through the fighting, cutting down shades left and right and all around. If these are what remains of warriors, then they are the decrepit remnants of poor fighters indeed. Some are better than others, but not by much. These are the sort of warriors the slaughter of whom gave the Amazons their fearsome reputation when they lived alongside men. Among them, she is a whirlwind of steel. Her cloak whispers, following in her wake.

When a shade blocks her strike, she stumbles, surprised.

The shade she fights wears shining armor. Like her, he carries a spear, though he does not have a shield to match. His dark hair is short and his face is beardless and youthful.

Wary now, Menalippe takes a step back and begins to circle.

Around the two, the other shades, remnants of a heroic age, fade back, respecting the duel begun.

Menalippe's opponent keeps his spear low, as if he thinks she will throw herself onto it. It is the stance of a man more accustomed to fighting boars than men. He is better than the other shades, but not by much.

Menalippe charges. She crashes into her enemy's spear with her shield raised, forcing it to slide off harmlessly. Her spear thrusts forward, piercing the shade's chest. A grievous wound. He falters, but, suspended as he is from Menalippe's spear, he cannot fall. Dropping his weapon, he clutches at hers. Menalippe kicks him free. He falls to the ground heavily. Lying there, he gestures, beckoning Menalippe to kneel beside him.

The other shades are still giving them the honor of single combat, and so Menalippe approaches cautiously and kneels.

"I am Meleager, son of Oeneus," the shade says. "I have not seen you here before and I would know who has struck me down."

"I am Menalippe," Menalippe says. She pauses. She has not introduced herself since leaving the world of men so long ago. Even then, she rarely spoke with anyone aside from her sisters. She has neither father nor mother to call herself by. "Wife of Antiope."

"A woman," Meleager says. He squeezes his eyes shut, face contorted in pain as he clutches his wounded shoulder. "An Amazon. Tell me, does Atalanta yet live? Does she remember me?"

"Atalanta lives," Menalippe says carefully. "But I do not know her mind."

Meleager's laughter is broken as his shade subsides to mist.

[] [] []

Several more times Menalippe must fight as she traverses the city. Though some shades attempt to speak to her, she does not stop for them. They mean nothing to her.

Several times, brighter shades, shades invested with _kleos_ , attempt to challenge her.

She cuts them down.

[] [] []

The city docks are silent in the same way that the slums were. Shades sit motionless on piers, their feet dangling into the water, their empty eyes staring out at nothing. Mighty ships stand in the still sea, their crews lying on decks with no thought to sail.

The first ship she approaches seems to have no captain and no crew that can be stirred from their rest. So too the second and third ships are barren.

On the fourth ship, she finds a hero.

He is fair-haired and ruggedly handsome. Like the fighting shades of the city, he is armed and armored. His skin seems to shine with a soft golden light that pushes back the gloom of the underworld. As Menalippe walks the pier towards his ship, he raises a hand to greet her. He comes to the rail of his galley. "Hail," he calls. "It is well met, soldier. You seem to seek a ship and I seek a crew. I am Jason, son of Aeson. What are you called?"

Menalippe comes to a halt across the gangway from Jason. She considers her words. Most men refuse a woman's presence on their ship. But there is nothing she can say to avoid identifying herself as such. "I am Menalippe, wife of Antiope," she says. "I seek passage across the sea."

Jason hesitates.

He doesn't want a woman on his ship.

Behind Menalippe, there is a clatter of arms. She turns.

The shade she spoke with before, Meleager, comes at the head of a cavalcade of heroes, all of them shining. Some shine brighter than others, but none are mere mist. They are great men all. They _were_ great men. Without acknowledging Menalippe, they march along the pier and cross the gangway onto the ship.

When all his crew have passed, fair-haired Jason finally extends a hand towards Menalippe, beckoning her. "I have one final berth on my ship," he says. "Come with us. We sail to Colchis in the east."

"I wouldn't do that if I were you, child."

A woman has come now to the dock. Her long dark hair is unbound, her skin is pale, and she wears a golden three-faced talisman of the goddess Hecate around her neck. Gemstones wink from the hem of her dress, a more decadent garment than any Menalippe has seen since leaving the world of men. She walks with a confidence that would make Hippolyta envious. But it is a _hard_ confidence. She glows even more brightly than Jason.

"His ship will face a storm on the open sea," the woman says. "And it will sink. I will sink it. Like I've done to every other ship and crew he's set out from this port with."

Jason's golden face darkens. He moves to stand at the gangway, though he does not set foot onto it. "Listen not to that witch," he says, sweeping his right hand through the air as if he could cut away the idea. "She is a kin-slayer and she would see your journey fail merely for speaking with me."

The way the woman speaks – Menalippe does not doubt her. She speaks of malice, but she speaks with certainty. A shiver of fear runs through her. Of all the ends she might meet, she desires to drown least of all. But would she drown in this place? Or might she walk beneath the waters until she comes again to land? "Lady," she says, "I must cross the sea and his ship is the only one setting out."

"You are going to Colchis?" the woman asks.

"I am looking for the steppes across the sea," Menalippe says.

"You're going to Colchis," the woman says. "Or, rather, somewhat north of there. The steppes are empty save for the horselords and their gods. What business have you there?"

"I seek my wife," Menalippe replies.

It may be a trick of the gloom, but Menalippe thinks that for a moment the woman's face softens. "Come with me then. I will take you across the sea."

"Don't trust her," Jason shouts from his ship. Anger mars his handsome features. His hands are tight fists. It looks as if he wants to come down to the dock, but he stays on the galley, impotent. "She is treacherous. A snake. A woman. Do not follow her."

Menalippe takes a step away from the ship and towards the woman. "Why would you help me?"

The woman shrugs. "Spite." She turns and beckons Menalippe to follow. "My ship is this way."

[] [] []

The woman's ship sails itself, its prow cutting the still grey waters. The sea makes Menalippe uneasy and witchcraft makes gooseflesh of her skin. In the distance, a ship-killing storm rages. It is not clear to Menalippe how long they have been at sea, but, judging from their relation to the storm they've made little progress. The lack of progress is unsettling. Jason's words rattle about in Menalippe's head, his warning not to trust this woman.

She thinks she knows this woman.

"Medea," Menalippe says.

Lounging amidst a pile of cushions on the deck, Medea turns her attention to her guest. "Yes?"

Menalippe herself has taken a seat several feet away on the bare wood of the deck. She sits with her legs crossed, her shield on her back and her spear in her lap. "That is who you are?"

Medea shrugs. It is an elegant shrug, graceful and precise. "That is who I was, I suppose. Medea. And who are you, whose aid I've come to?"

Menalippe does not hesitate in her answer. "I am Menalippe, wife of Antiope."

Even when Medea snorts, it is regal. "That explains quite a bit," she says. She adjusts one of her pillows.

"I don't take your meaning," Menalippe says.

"If I meant for you to understand me, I would make you understand me," Medea replies. "So tell me, Menalippe, wife of Antiope, what has driven you down from the land of the living to this sorry house, opening a door that should have stayed shut? Your wife? Really?"

Menalippe tries not to bristle at Medea's condescension. To anger the witch would be a thing poorly done. "Yes," she says.

Medea hums thoughtfully. "Sometimes I wish I'd married so well," she says. She rolls onto her side to look out across the sea. In the distance, the great storm continues to wreak havoc on otherwise placid grey waters. "But vengeance gives this gloomy place a bit of sun. And you, you're the most interesting thing that's happened in gods know how long."

Stone faced, Menalippe says nothing.

"Not that I envy you," Medea continues. "Nasty business, how you Amazons came to be. What was it with you? Jilted lover? City sacked? Starved in favor of a fat brother?"

In the house of the dead, the memory is both closer and farther away than in the sunlit world above.

Menalippe speaks without passion. "My husband drowned me."

Medea goes silent. There is a long pause. Medea's dark eyes regard Menalippe's still form.

Then, Medea raises a hand and gestures with her fingers. The wind that's been pushing her ship along becomes more forceful. "Let's get you to land," she says.


	6. Antiope

**Better Days to Come**

 **Chapter: Antiope**

* * *

When land at last comes into sight, Medea takes the golden talisman of Hecate from her neck and offers it to Menalippe. "If you need me," she says, "I'll find you." For a moment she looks as though she wants to say something more. In the end though, she doesn't.

Menalippe takes the amulet and clasps it about her own neck. She thanks Medea.

[] [] []

There is no port where they've come to land and so Menalippe swings herself down from the side of the ship, landing in chest-deep water. She wades the shore. Even as she sets foot on the beach, Medea's ship begins to float back whence they came. Menalippe turns back just in time to see Medea wave farewell.

Somewhat stiffly, Menalippe raises her own hand and returns the gesture.

[] [] []

The land across the sea is a strange place.

It feels colder than anywhere else Menalippe has traveled through in her descent, in so much as the air of the underworld feels like anything at all. Though here there are hills, the desolation reminds her of the plain that she first crossed after leaving Charon's ferry on the Acheron. In the distance, high mountains rise. There are no clouds to obscure their snow-capped peaks.

The Amazons were born on the banks of the Thermadon and then they went west, falling upon the cities of men as an avenging scourge. Though Menalippe knew that there were lands to the east and to the north, she never knew much of them save that they were a place where even the gods were distant.

Crossing the steppes, the only indication she can discern that she's making any progress across the land is that, in time, the mountains seem to loom larger. It's more assurance of direction than she had crossing the wasteland beyond the Acheron, but the emptiness of the place is still disconcerting. She thinks that she preferred the chaos of the necropolis. It was not so lonely there.

Looking all about, Menalippe can almost imagine the hills through which she travels covered in green grass and wildflowers instead of grey. She can almost imagine that instead of still gloom, there might be a gentle breeze. If this place were green, if the sky were blue, if the sun were bright – this is the sort of place that Antiope would have loved.

There is no sun in this land. There is no moon. There is no day. There is no night. There is no _wind_.

Menalippe wanders.

[] [] []

Roaming the steppes, Menalippe reaches for the threads of Fate seeking some direction. She finds them, but they are strange. They are slippery. They are insubstantial. They go nowhere. They go to nothing. Instinct honed by thousands of years of error tells her not to touch them. The threads here are of futures that never came to be.

The Sight was always a gift as varied as the gods who bestowed it. When it came from Zeus, it overwhelmed the bearer, leaving them mad. When it came from Apollo, it always came with duties and curses and all sorts of machinations. Hecate demanded sacrifice in return for every prophecy. But Hermes - Hermes granted the Sight to Menalippe cautioning her only that she should not use it to find lost cattle.

It was an uncommon thing, a gift from a god that came unasked for and without accompanying obligations.

In the absence of guidance, she mapped out the contours of her blessing alone, one splintered vision at a time. It took years before reaching for the threads was second nature, and years more before she learned the wisdom of not looking.

It was a hard lesson, that some evils come to pass only because they are anticipated.

[] [] []

Amidst solitude, there's little to do but think and remember.

In the old world, there were a handful of mortals with some degree of prophecy. The most powerful of them would sit in temples, attended to and honored. Kings would come to them and bow and beseech them as if they were the very gods they spoke for. The Pythia was once such oracle.

Menalippe met the Pythia once.

She was a beautiful woman, but it was a sort of untouchable beauty.

It had been early in Hippolyta's reign. Menalippe had accompanied Antiope and Antiope had accompanied Hippolyta to Delphi. Hippolyta hadn't sought the future so much as she'd sought the Pythia's acknowledgement of her rights, or at least, her acquiescence bought with gold and incense. Apollo's oracle was both a king-maker and a destroyer of thrones.

At the time, Menalippe had envied the Pythia's mastery of the Sight.

She'd told this to Antiope and Antiope then asked her why she would envy the Pythia when she got to wake up and see Antiope every morning.

The Amazons spent a week at Delphi.

On the last day, the day before they planned to leave, Menalippe returned from a patrol to find the tent she shared with Antiope surrounded by the temple guard. As Menalippe approached, the Pythia emerged from the tent, followed by an utterly bewildered Antiope.

The Pythia didn't acknowledge Menalippe as she passed by, flanked by her guards. Her speech was dedicated to Apollo. She spoke prophecy and prophecy only.

What prophecy had she spoken to Antiope?

Antiope shrugged. Nothing useful. Nothing she didn't already know.

 _Follow her_.

Before too many years had passed, Menalippe and Antiope both forgot about the Pythia's words. There were wars, a great many wars. Enemies died. Friends died. And then the gods themselves were falling.

Here on the steppes in the house of the dead, however, Menalippe remembers.

She hopes that it is a sign.

Traveling across the desolate hills, it is good to have hope.

[] [] []

There's a column of smoke on the horizon. It's not much, just wisps, the sort of smoke that comes from a small camp fire. Grey against a grey sky in a grey world, Menalippe almost misses it.

It's the first sign of something else that she's seen since coming to this place across the sea.

She walks towards the smoke. She's come high enough in the hills now that the soil is rocky. It crunches under her boots.

[] [] []

A woman sits at the fire. She is old – her face is dark and weathered from a sun that does not shine in the underworld's gloom. Her hair is white. Dressed in furs and wearing a wide metal belt, she is strange to Menalippe's eyes. A short distance from her and her fire, two horses graze on lifeless grass. They have neither bridle nor saddle.

Menalippe approaches with caution. She allows her spear to rest on her back though. This woman does not appear to be an enemy.

As old as the woman looks, her voice, however, is strong. "Traveler, come join me at my hearth," she says. She sweeps her arm out in a gesture of welcome.

The woman does not shine as the heroic dead do, yet she seems far more than a mere shade.

Casting her eyes about, Menalippe sees that the woman is not unarmed. She sees an iron knife and a horn bow and a deadly axe. But the woman hasn't reached for any of her weapons. Still, she stops where it seems safe to her to stop. "I mean you no harm," she says slowly. "I am looking for someone."

The old woman pats the grey ground beside her. "Sit," she says. "Tell me your name and tell me of your journey."

Setting aside her misgivings, Menalippe takes the invitation. She settles down across the fire from the woman. Her spear and shield remain on her back. "My name is Menalippe," she says. "I've come here looking for my wife."

The old woman peers at her with golden eyes that gleam with reflected fire. "Menalippe," she says, rolling the name about in her mouth. "You're a Greek."

Menalippe shifts uncomfortably. "I am," she replies.

"But you're not a very good Greek, are you?" the woman asks. It's rhetorical. The answer is obvious. "Dressed like that, marrying a woman, and coming all the way out here. And what is the name of this wife you seek? Who is she?"

"Her name is Antiope," Menalippe says. "She is…" Menalippe falters. Then, "She is strong and brave and fierce. She lives to excel. She could wrestle a bear and win. I love her and she loved me. She died for her sister's daughter." Menalippe pauses again. "And she's short."

"You're looking for her here, but your people don't come here," the woman says. Even with the strange gloomy light of the house of the dead, the fire casts flickering shadows about her face. "This is not their land."

"A god," Menalippe begins. " _My_ god, the lord Hermes, told me she was here. She was a horsewoman before she was a Greek."

The old woman laughs. Her laugh is kind. "And then he told you he couldn't help you beyond that, didn't he?"

Menlaippe nods, wary.

"He is a master of tricks, that one, and he plays a very long game. Be sure that you did not find your way to him except that he wanted something to come of your venture that would be for his benefit. But he is a foreign god here," the woman says. She stands and begins banking her fire. "You are foreign here. These steppes are my steppes. These people are my people. You are not one of mine."

It takes Menalippe a moment to understand the woman's meaning, then, startled, Menalippe stands. As soon as she is standing, she thinks that it is perhaps better to kneel. She kneels. "Good lady?" she asks.

The old woman stamps at the dirt covering her now extinguished fire. "Your folk call me Tabiti," she says. Though she does not call and does not gesture, the two horses that were grazing nearby approach. "Your god should have turned you back at the beginning of your journey. He should have sent you back to shut the door you opened. This is not a place for the living. Your presence disrupts the shades, reminds them of things they ought not to remember. And the shades are meant to stay dead. There was a _reason_ for the old ways, you know. But you are here now, as you are."

"So you will not send me away?" Menalippe asks. She is keenly aware of the weight of her spear on her back. She is, too, keenly aware that her spear will not help her against the old woman, Tabiti. She does not quite understand the nature of gods not her own. What she does understand is that this old woman is far greater than she. It is for mortals to be at the mercy of gods.

But if they are at cross purposes, then Menalippe will fight. She will fall, but she will fight.

"If I told you that she is happy here, would you leave of your own accord?" Tabiti asks.

Menalippe swallows. She knows her answer immediately, but she says it with care. It does her no good to speak her conviction using words ill-chosen. "If she is happy here, I would ask your leave to stay."

Tabiti pauses her work dismantling her camp and regards Menalippe with her fire-flecked eyes. "This is not a house for the living."

"I know," Menalippe replies.

There is a long moment then where neither mortal nor god moves.

Then, "Your Antiope is dear to me. It pained me when she was taken from my steppes as a child," Tabiti says. Satisfied that her fire is out, she takes up her arms and turns to one of the horses, a tall dun stallion. She grips a bit of the horse's mane and then swings herself up smoothly. She has the poise of a woman who has lived her life on horseback. She does not move like the old woman she appears to be. "Though not as dear to me as she is to you, I think."

Tabiti gestures to the second horse, intending that Menalippe mount as well.

"Come," Tabiti says. "She's out stealing horses not far from here."

[] [] []

Tabiti's steeds do not move any differently from mortal horses, but they cover ground as if they are flying over it, hooves moving so swiftly that they barely touch the earth.

Menalippe clings tightly to the mane of her horse.

[] [] []

She hears the battle before they crest the ridge and she sees it. Mounted warriors fighting at full gallop weave around one another, swinging axes and shooting bows with deadly skill. The Amazons are better on horseback than their Greek enemies ever were. These fighters, however, would put all but the best Amazon riders to shame.

Many of the mounted shades shine to some extent.

One shines more than all the rest, a brilliant beacon standing out from across the battlefield.

 _Antiope_.

She is smiling and laughing and fighting and Menalippe hasn't seen her so _alive_ since before the Amazons departed the world of men.

Enemies circle her.

For Menalippe, instinct takes over.

Menalippe urges her horse into a charge, leaving Tabiti still on the ridge above. Her ears are filled with the noise of thundering hooves. As she closes distance, she takes her spear and shield from her back.

She crashes into the chaos of the battle. It's hard to tell who might be friend and who is foe in the melee. The warriors wear strange metal jackets and trousers. Their saddles are brightly colored and as best Menalippe can tell, it's the ones with the blue saddles who are attacking her wife.

She sees one warrior, a woman with fiery red hair, approaching Antiope from behind with an axe.

Menalippe puts her spear through the woman's chest. The shade is gone in an instant and her horse with her. Shadows going to nothing.

A whistle – Menalippe raises her shield and the arrow thuds harmlessly into steel.

She lowers her shield, seeking another opponent that she might engage.

She lowers her shield just in time to see a shining rider on a black horse swinging an axe at her face.

The moment of recognition appears to Menalippe as if in slow motion. She sees Antiope's eyes go wide and her entire face morph to panic.

Menalippe has never before heard Antiope swear so loudly.

Antiope manages to change the trajectory of her axe such that it does not split Menalippe's skull in two, but her armored forearm still clubs Menalippe across the brow.

The world goes dark.

[] [] []

The first thing Menalippe sees when she opens her eyes is Antiope's face.

Not the painted, lecherous grin of Hippolyta's ceiling, but Antiope's actual face. Blue eyes, a strong jaw, laugh lines, an edge of panic – it's Antiope's incredibly worried actual face.

Antiope is kneeling over her, running her hands through Menalippe's hair, and babbling, mostly to herself. "My love, my love. Why are you dead? What happened? Why are you here? Menalippe?" Saying her wife's name, she pats Menalippe's face several times, as if it will make her wake up faster.

Menalippe suppresses a groan. Her head feels like an elephant stepped on it and Antiope isn't helping. They're still out on steppe. She feels like one giant bruise and she can hardly move from the stiffness of a brutal fall from a horse. "You're glowing."

Antiope does glow, as brightly or even brighter than Jason did. She wears the same strange fur garb as the other shades in these parts. The metal belt she wears over her trousers is iron and gold. More gold winks from her wrists, neck, and ears. Her hair is tied back in its customary braid. The braid is slightly crooked.

Antiope pauses her babbling. She looks at herself, then at Menalippe. "You're not," she says.

"You're the hero," Menalippe says. She closes her eyes against the throbbing agony of her headache. She hates falling off horses. "I love you."

Menalippe thinks that Antiope might reply in kind, but talking and kissing at the same time was the one trick Antiope never figured out and she's decided she wants to kiss.

There is something insubstantial about Antiope's touch and there is something missing in their kiss.

But Menalippe can ignore that.

Easily.

For the moment, it's enough that she has her Antiope again.

Menalippe pushes up slightly into the kiss and Antiope helps her by getting arms around her and pulling her close. Menalippe would like for Antiope to never let go.

When Antiope finally breaks the kiss, it's to speak. She is close still, her face a bare inch from Menalippe's. As she speaks though, Menalippe can't feel Antiope's breath on her skin. "I am sorry I left you, my love."

Head still throbbing from being clubbed across the brow and knocked clean off a horse, Menalippe manages a smile. "I found you."

"How?" Antiope asks.

Menalippe closes her eyes again against the pounding in her head. Some part of her is anxious that her wife might vanish unless watched unblinkingly, but with Antiope's arms around her, it seems a fanciful worry. "A goddess," she says. "Tabiti."

Antiope goes still.

Menalippe opens her eyes once more. She looks up to the ridge. Tabiti is already descending. "Over there," she says.

As Tabiti rides down and goes among Antiope's band, they dismount quickly and kneel and touch their foreheads to the grey earth. Even when she has passed, they do not rise. A few even crawl backwards, away from their goddess. She comes to a halt near Antiope and Menalippe. She stays astride her tall stallion. "Antiope, my daughter," she says. Her voice sounds of thunder.

Unlike her brethren, Antiope doesn't touch her forehead to the steppe. Even as she looks up to the goddess, her hands cling to Menalippe, as if she thinks that should she let go, her wife will melt away. "Fire-mother," she replies. One of Antiope's hands finds Menalippe's and squeezes it tightly. She is shaking. She is _afraid_.

Menalippe holds Antiope's hand just as tightly in return.

"Your wife has come a long way for you," Tabiti says. "Do you know how far she has come?"

Antiope remains silent. Her grip on Menalippe's hand is vice-like.

Menalippe pushes herself up into a sitting position so that she can lean into her wife and get an arm around her waist. She does not much like anything that seeks to intimidate Antiope, and she likes even less that which succeeds in so doing.

When Tabiti next speaks, there is ghostly flame about her head in a halo and her eyes shine with fire. The air about her shimmers with heat. Her words recall the thunder of horse's hooves striking the ground. "Your wife has come from the land of the living. This house is for the dead." She takes her knife from her belt. She drops it to the ground before Antiope. It scorches the grey grass where it lands, sending up thin curls of smoke. "She rides like a child and she does not know our ways. This is your place. It is not hers. But she loves you. And I love you. She may remain here, but not as she is. I give this choice to you."

Antiope stares at the knife lying in front of her. It's a simple thing. It has a wide blade, perhaps half a foot in length, thicker on one side than on the other. Save for its heat, it seems no different from any other knife.

The only sound is the soft crackle of flame.

"Fire-mother," Antiope says. "I will not take that choice." She speaks with fear-laced conviction.

"Antiope," Menalippe begins softly. She is trying to hide the storm in her chest. What Tabiti is doing – it is unjust.

Perhaps she is not so different from the gods of the Amazons.

Tabiti's voice is a storm. As the goddess turns her attention to Menalippe, Menalippe flinches reflexively. "Pawn of Hermes, be silent. You asked me for a boon and I have seen fit to grant it. You should have burned with her, but you chose not to. Instead, _selfish,_ you have disturbed this silent house. Now, if you would give your life for this woman – that decision is hers."

Menalippe bites back a furious reply. Snapping at the goddess will lead to nothing good.

Without letting go of Menalippe's hand, Antiope stands. Menalippe stands as well, following her up. Antiope's grip is crushing. She takes a half-step towards the goddess, as if she can threaten flame. "Fire-mother, I will speak with my wife," Antiope says, voice edged with anger. "I do not decide her fate."

Tabiti's aura of fire is such that Menalippe cannot read her expression. Her blaze wreathes her and her horse such that she can barely be seen. "A boon for her and a boon for you then," she thunders. "But remember that I am the fire that sweeps across dry grass. I am not a patient mistress."

She raises a hand and tall pillars of flame erupt and consume the other shades and their horses. Then, she herself wheels about and vanishes into fire as well. The ground where she once was is blackened grass, burnt to char.

Only Antiope, Menalippe, and their horses remain.

Antiope turns slightly so that she can rest her forehead against Menalippe's shoulder.

She's still shaking.

Menalippe holds her and waits for her to speak.

When she does, it's to make a request. "Can we ride?"

[] [] []

Antiope's horse is a black mare. When Menalippe strokes the mare's neck, she can feel a great scar from where the horse's throat was once cut.

If the horse remembers how it died, it doesn't hold it against her. It gently butts its head against her chest as Antiope mounts.

Menalippe herself rides the horse that she received from Tabiti. To Menalippe's relief, in the absence of the goddess, it moves at the same pace as would any ordinary horse.

They leave the empty battlefield behind.

Antiope rides with Tabiti's knife tucked in her belt. Sheathed, it has ceased to burn.

The steppe is quiet around them.

"Was this your life before?" Menalippe asks quietly.

Antiope takes her time in answering. "I think so," she says. "I was a child here."

Antiope leads them higher into the hills. In time, a round tent comes into sight. It is solitary. Alone. When they reach it, Antiope dismounts and Menalippe follows her to the ground. They leave the horses to graze at the grey grass. They sit outside the tent. Side by side, they look out across the steppe.

If it were not grey, if it were not submerged in gloom, it would be a beautiful view. In the far distance, Menalippe thinks she can make out the sea she crossed coming here.

"What was it that you asked the fire-mother for?" Antiope asks.

Menalippe closes her eyes and thinks back to what feels like an eternity ago. That the old woman she spoke with could become the fire-wreathed creature that spoke to Antiope is a slippery thing to hold in her mind. "I asked," she begins. She pauses, then, "I asked that if you were happy here that she would allow me to stay. I… had forgotten how gods twist words."

Antiope sets her head in her hands.

"I have no desire to take you from this place if you are happy here," Menalippe says. "But I have no desire to live apart from you. I told your sister that I would return with you or not at all. That I should stay here – it was not unforeseen."

Antiope's laugh is hollow. Like her kiss, it is not quite what it should be. It sends a shiver down Menalippe's spine. Antiope, as a shade, is animate with all the _kleos_ of her life. But Menalippe has met other shades of those who were once great. She has watched Jason sailing out in his ship, only for Medea to wreck him in a cycle they've repeated too many times to fathom. And she's seen so many shades, utterly trapped, slaughtering and slaughtered again and again.

Antiope riding the steppes and skirmishing with other bands is not so different from the carnage of the necropolis on the far shore.

What sort of shade would Menalippe be?

Both shadows, what would the both of them together be?

That she should die was not unforeseen, but the nature of the house of the dead, so close at hand, scares her.

"Did you See this?" Antiope asks.

"I couldn't See anything beyond myself crossing the Acheron," Menalippe replies. She thinks, briefly, of the dead futures that the threads in the underworld represent. A shiver runs down her spine.

"Here," Antiope starts, "I ride and I fight and I kill here but no one ever dies. It's good here. It is very good here."

"You never liked Themyscira. Too much peace," Menalipe says. She hesitates. Then, "These steppes are not such a bad place."

Antiope lifts her head from her hands and looks to Menalippe. Even in death, her eyes are the clear blue of a cloudless sky. Her words come slowly, haltingly. "I followed you to Themyscira. And I'll follow you now too, I think," she says.

Menalippe allows her hesitance to show on her face. There's no use here for hiding. "Antiope…"

"Menalippe," Antiope replies. Now, she speaks fast and strong, all in a rush. "I forgot you."

In Antiope's face, Menalippe sees her own pain mirrored.

Antiope brings her knees up to her chest and hugs them. She starts to look away, catches herself, then meets Menalippe's eyes again. Plaintive, her voice breaks. "I think it's because I'm dead." She looks and she sounds very small.

Menalippe shifts so that she can wrap her arms around the shade of her wife and lean into her. Antiope isn't cold, but she isn't warm either. For a moment, Menalippe is terrified she'll dissolve away. But she doesn't.

"I don't want to love you as a shade," Antiope says. "And I don't want you to die and forget me. Don't make me keep you here. My love, please."

"Make you?"

"I am your hand. I cannot take your life without your leave," Antiope says. She speaks as if her words themselves cause her pain in uttering them. "So too, I would not refuse without your leave."

There is a long silence in which Menalippe says nothing. She has known Antiope for a very long time. Antiope is not done speaking.

"I was happy here," Antiope continues. "And if you left, I would be happy again. Because I am dead. But this is not the only way to be happy. And I can imagine nothing happier than being by your side. If the fire-mother permits, I would like to leave this place for you."

Knowing now that Antiope has said her piece, Menalippe takes Antiope's head in her hands and she kisses her wife.

Antiope is no less insubstantial than she was on the battlefield, but she is Antiope and that is what matters.

[] [] []

When Tabiti rides to Antiope's tent in the high hills, they are waiting.

Tabiti has come as an old woman once more, without any fire about her except for in her eyes. As an old woman, Menalippe thinks, her form is one that would not be out of place among Menalippe's gods.

Antiope stands and walks forward. Menalippe follows a half-step behind her.

Tabiti is not one of Menalippe's gods. Instead, she is Antiope's goddess. As Antiope approaches her, her flames grow. Still, Menalippe thinks that she can see her without her aura of fire. It is a slippery thing, seeing a god and seeing a god as another sees them.

"Fire-mother," Antiope says, "I have made my decision.

Tabiti sits astride her horse in silence, save for the soft crackle of the air about her burning. She waits.

"I will walk with my wife back to the sunlit lands," Antiope says. She draws Tabiti's knife from her belt and offers it to her goddess.

If this answer surprises Tabiti, her face does not betray it. "The dead are meant to stay dead, my daughter," she says. As before, her voice rings with the power of storm. "I will not stop you. But this place will, and such rumblings will stir things better left to sleep. Should your quest fail, you will be beyond my reach." She urges her horse closer to Antiope. When she is within reach, she sets her hand on Antiope's brow. "Know that you have your mother's love. As does your sister. Keep the knife."


	7. Nostos

**Better Days to Come**

 **Chapter: Nostos**

* * *

Riding with Antiope across the steppes is better by far than walking alone. Ever a warrior, the only thing that Antiope took with her from her tent was a shield, deeply scarred and dented but still more than strong enough to trust a life to.

Side by side, they converse about everything and nothing.

"Hippolyta means to take up with Philippus," Menalippe says. A gentle breeze, a strange thing in the underworld, tugs at her hair.

Antiope snorts. "Does she? Do you know how long I've been telling her to stop chasing after terrible men and settle down with a nice woman?"

"Yes, my love," Menalippe replies. "I was there. For all of it."

"A very long time," Antiope concludes, shaking a fist as if she's making a point. She pauses. "Philippus must be thrilled. She's been pining for ages." Antiope turns to look at Menalippe. She narrows her eyes. "What's that look for?"

"I missed the sound of your voice," Menalippe says.

Antiope nudges her horse closer to Menalippe's so that their knees are almost touching. She leans towards her wife. She takes a deep breath, opens her mouth and-

"Don't even think about it," says Menalippe. "You'll spook the horses."

It is good to be with her wife again.

[] [] []

When they reach the shore, Antiope gives Menalippe's horse a slap on the rump to send it back to Tabiti. It takes off at a gallop. Turning to her own horse, she hesitates. She gives the mare a kiss on the snout and a pat on the neck. She runs her fingers through its black coat. She whispers something into its ear. Then, she sends it on its way as well.

Menalippe takes off the talisman of Hecate that Medea gave her and goes down towards the water. The gold idol is heavy in her hand. She frowns at it.

There are no ships on the horizon, only a far-off storm.

"Now what?" Antiope asks. The beach is mostly rocks. She picks up a flat one and skips it across the placid grey waters of the sea. Despite the dark storm in the distance, the waters where they stand have only small waves. Great waves take wind and the pull of the earth. Both of those are short supply in the house of the dead.

"I think we wait," Menalippe answers. She goes back from the water a few paces and sits down.

Antiope skips several more stones. She's not terribly good at it, only managing two or three jumps before her projectiles sink. Dressed as she is in trousers and a metal jacket, Menalippe can't see any of Antiope's lean muscles, but the way Antiope moves is the manner of a warrior. She's throwing her rocks too hard.

Menalippe doesn't point this out. Antiope has had thousands of years to learn how better to skip a stone. If she hasn't improved in all that time, she won't improve much now.

When Antiope tires of losing rocks to the water, she trudges back up the beach and sits down next to Menalippe, close but not as close as Menalippe would like. Menalippe reaches over to tug gently on Antiope's braid. Antiope responds by pushing herself over until she bumps up against Menalippe.

She's still _not quite there_ , but – perhaps it's Menalippe's imagination – she's _more real_ than she was when they started their journey from the high hills to the shore.

Antiope glances over at the idol of golden Hecate in Menalippe's hand.

"May I?" Antiope asks.

Menalippe offers her the talisman wordlessly. Antiope turns it this way and that in her hands. It gleams in the half-light of the underworld.

"She never got along well with the other gods," Menalippe comments.

Antiope brushes the pad of her thumb over one of Hecate's golden faces. "She was closer to this place," she gestures to the beach and to the steppe beyond, "Than to Olympus." Handing the amulet back to Menalippe, she asks, "Do you think we have to be at a crossroads for it to work?"

Menalippe's answer is accompanied by a shrug. "This is a sort of crossroads. Land and water and air." As she pronounces the word _air_ , a wind, not a breeze but a true wind, sweeps along the coast, stirring up the sea. But then it passes.

"You're the Seer, I suppose," replies Antiope. She lies down on her back so she can look up at the grey sky. "Sometimes it's hard to think that Ares killed them all," she says.

"Did Ares kill the gods of the steppes as well?" Menalippe asks. It's a sort of idle question. She doubts Antiope has an answer.

Antiope, from her lack of a response, indeed does not have an answer.

For a while, they both say nothing. They've exhausted all the small things that people say to one another and they wouldn't have endured together for so long if they were not comfortable with silence.

It's Antiope who speaks again first. "I was born near here - in the living world. Hippolyta was my sister. Her name wasn't Hippolyta though."

"And your name wasn't Antiope," Menalippe says. "And my name wasn't Menalippe."

"Our tribe lost a war," Antiope continues. "Or maybe it was just a battle. We were taken and sold. Then…" Lying in the rocky sand of the beach, Antiope shrugs.

Menalippe closes her eyes. "My family had nothing," she says. "The only man willing to take me without a dowry was a local fisherman."

Menalippe feels a hand on her elbow.

"It's easier to think about here than it is above," Menalippe says. She opens her eyes again.

"My love," Antiope says. "You are my love."

Menalippe covers Antiope's hand with her own but says nothing. She's still mulling over a response when she sights a ship on the horizon. "There," she says, pointing.

[] [] []

Menalippe and Antiope wade out into the water to meet the ship.

Medea's vessel has seen better days. The deck is wet with seawater. The sail has a rip in it. Hair tied back, Medea herself is grim-faced as she lowers a rope ladder for them.

Instead of her heavily embroidered and gemstone-laden dress, Medea wears a green tunic. The cloth is of a princely quality, but it's still more the sort of garment one wears when work is expected.

When they board the witch's vessel, she sneers at them both. "You're so… saccharine. Lovely." She waves her hand toward the sail and a wind rises up. "Find somewhere to sit and hold on," she says. "This place doesn't like it when the dead try to leave." Hesitating, she looks at them again. "I'll get you something to change into. If you go overboard wearing all that metal…" To Antiope, she says, "You'll wind up wherever it is you were with no idea any of this happened." To Menalippe, "You, on the other hand – no one will ever see you again."

[] [] []

Menalippe seats herself near the center of the ship. She has taken roughly the same position that she had when she last sailed with Medea, that is, she is in the place farthest from the water. Antiope has gone over to the stern where Medea stands, guiding the ship.

"In the stories, you had a gold chariot drawn by dragons," Antiope says. She's wearing a brown wool tunic, her armor stowed in a crate lashed to the deck. Tabiti's knife is tucked into her belt. She leans against the ship's rail. The storm that looked to be on the distant horizon is close now. Wind, not wind stirred up by Medea, is blowing against them. Instead of trying to fight against it, she's tacking – headed for the storm. Storms on this sea in the house of the dead, she says, are not of the sort that can be avoided.

Medea snorts. "It was a gift from my grandfather, Helios," she says. "Do you see the sun anywhere in this place?" She pauses. "Any more questions?" From her tone, she is both expecting and looking forward to a conversation that is beneath her.

"You helped my wife," Antiope says. "Is there something that I can do for you in return?"

"Unlikely," Medea replies. She carefully moves the tiller, turning the ship starboard. "I suppose you could sacrifice a goat to me when you get home. Make it two goats. There are two of you. Or three even. One for the trip there, two for the trip back."

The wind is growing in strength. It pulls at Antiope's hair, but she wears a braid for a reason.

Medea shrugs. "I decided to help out of the kindness of my capacious heart. I wasn't looking for anything in return." She pauses. A darkness falls over her features. "When it spites my former husband, I work for free."

"Whatever your reasons," Antiope says, "You have my thanks. And I will sacrifice six goats."

Keeping one hand on the tiller, Medea waves her other hand dismissively. "Three is more than enough," she says. "Livestock don't have quite the value here that they do there."

Antiope turns to go back to her wife near the center of the ship. Medea stops her with a hand on her elbow.

When Medea speaks, her voice is quiet. "When I lived, I would have _killed_ to have what you have," she says. The way she says _killed_ , it is clear that she does not speak figuratively. "You're better off sacrificing animals to her than you are to me."

[] [] []

The storm lays across the water as far as the eye can see in any direction. There is no going around it. And so they go into it, the ship's prow slicing through the choppy sea at speed.

[] [] []

It is the sort of storm, Menalippe thinks, that Medea has been using to sink her husband's ship time and time again. It is a ship-killer, the kind of tempest that dooms fleets.

Rain pours down in great sheets.

Medea's vessel tilts and turns in the waves. It is all Menalippe can do to cling to the mast to stop herself from careening across the deck and into the water.

Though the air is still lit by the strange gloom of the underworld, the sky above them is blacker than the night of a new moon. Neither lightning nor thunder crash in this storm, but the winds and the waves are more than enough to sink fear deep into Menalippe's breast.

Medea kneels now at the stern of the ship, legs braced, eyes closed, mouth moving. From time to time, she'll gesture with her empty hands. In the high wind, despite the heavy rain, her dark hair has come loose and blows about wildly. The wood of the ship's deck has molded itself like clay to hold onto her legs.

Antiope stands at the tiller, guiding their fast-moving ship into the waves as best she can.

The winds blow screaming from every direction and again and again great, freezing, waves strike their ship from the side, submerging the deck and threatening push their craft down into the depths or tip it over. Above Menalippe, the canvas sail is in tatters.

"Medea!" Antiope screams. "More speed!"

Without opening her eyes, Medea scowls. She makes a fist in the air and she pulls. The ship lurches forward with a sudden start.

They crest a wave and then another wave and Menalippe thinks that maybe she can see land in the distance – or perhaps it's a trick of the light.

What's not a trick of the light is the sea creature that is suddenly abreast of their ship. Even in the great storm, the wave that it creates as it rises to the surface nearly capsizes them. It looks to be the head of a squid, though far, far, far too large. Its skin is a sickly yellow, coated in a thick slime of plants that have taken root in it. Menalippe sees a dark eye nearly the size of Medea's ship.

Something strikes the ship from below with such force that for a moment Menalippe hangs from the mast, grip slipping, her feet dangling above the water before the ship rights itself.

The thing that hit them was a tentacle, as thick as a mighty oak and the same awful shade of disease as the rest of the creature. It hangs above them for a moment, and then it swings.

It takes out the mast. The wood goes to splinters and Menalippe is thrown across the ship, her head cracking into the deck. She crashes into the ship's rail. The world spins. She pushes herself to a kneeling position, barely able to tell up from down. She looks around.

Medea is still fastened to the ship by her magic.

The tiller and Antiope, however, are gone.

There's a war-scream from above, somewhere in the rain. Menalippe looks up.

Antiope has her knife lodged in the tentacle – she's clinging to the knife and, with her free arm, scrambling for a purchase on the tentacle to keep from being thrown far through the storm as the thing finishes the slow arc of its blow. She's so high and so distant that Menalippe can barely make her out in the rain.

Then, with a crash, the tentacle slams into the sea, taking Antiope with it.

Menalippe scrambles to her feet and sprints across the slick deck to the point nearest where Antiope went under. When she gets to the rail, Menalippe leaps. She gets one foot on the tilting rail of the ship and then shoves herself forward in a clumsy fall.

Behind her, Medea shouts something, but it's lost in the thunderous roar of the storm.

Unable to adjust for the reeling ship and the chaotic waves, Menalippe slams into the water shoulder first.

The water is freezing. And it is dark. And it is so much greater than any mortal, than any god.

Menalippe's terror is immediate.

She feels pressed, squeezed from all sides by the water, slammed by the currents, a tiny speck in the tempest, about to drown.

She has no time for terror.

She kicks her way up to the surface and sets out towards where she thinks Antiope went under. Around her, the storm continues to rage. Several times, waves strike her, slamming her down and fill her mouth with salty water. She struggles up to the air again. Then, she spits the water out, she inhales, she dives.

Even beneath the waves, she is buffeted about, to and fro. She has little sense of direction in the turbulent sea.

The gloomy half-light of the underworld does not extend to its depths.

Menalippe casts about wildly, trying to look for something, anything, in the darkness.

There.

A light.

 _Fire_.

Menalippe swims hard, racing down towards where Antiope struggles with the sea creature. In the inky dark, by the light of Antiope's burning knife, Menalippe can make out that the tentacle is wrapped around Antiope's waist and her wife is trying to hack her way free. In the glow of the knife, the water is murky with blood.

As Menalippe approaches, Antiope switches from repeatedly stabbing at the thing to a single deep strike, both hands on the knife, trying to dig down into the creature's flesh. Bubbles rush out of the wound. The knife is boiling the water.

Coming from behind, Menalippe gets her arms around Antiope, just above where the tentacle has her. With powerful kicks, she swims _up_. The strength of the creature is far greater than Menalippe, but she will not consign her wife to the deeps.

Her lungs burn.

She is running out of air.

Menalippe holds on and keeps pushing for the surface.

She knows when the tentacle finally lets go. Suddenly, she is lighter. She kicks hard, rising.

For the first part of the ascent, Antiope swims with her.

Then, in a stream of bubbles, Antiope goes limp.

Menalippe pushes herself to go harder, faster.

When the Amazons would swim Themyscira together, Menalippe was almost always near the back of the group. And Antiope was always behind her, shouting encouragingly that they were halfway there when they'd only just set out. Shouting that they were halfway there when the end was in sight.

Now, Antiope is below Menalippe. She is silent and still.

Menalippe thinks she can see the grey light of the surface above. They are far closer than halfway.

Menalippe breaks up into the air with a massive gasp.

All around her, the storm rages on.

Taking her breath where she can find it between the crashing of waves, Menalippe searches for the ship. With every breaker, she feels as if the sea itself is trying to shove her and Antiope under again.

In the tempest, Menalippe can't see the ship. It's nowhere. _Nowhere_.

Menalippe hugs Antiope's limp body closer to herself.

Antiope does not feel insubstantial. She is heavy. Swimming with her is like swimming while dragging a lead weight.

A wave hits them and slams them under again. Disoriented, Menalippe can barely locate the surface again. When she manages to pull them up again, she coughs out a mouthful of sea water. "Poseidon!" she calls. "Amphitrite! Brizo! Leucothea!" The names roll off her tongue. She lived on the shore, once. She knows the gods of the sea. Now, she doesn't have the breath to spare on doomed prayers, but breath has little worth when all it can buy her is a half-second longer of rest before the next wave.

And then the next wave comes and _there_ , _there at the crest of the wave, high enough to be visible from a great distance_ – Medea's ship pitches wildly in the storm.

With Antiope under her arm, Menalippe swims.

Swimming for two is not an easy thing and, swimming for two in such a storm, Menalippe struggles to keep her head above the water, much less make headway through the dark waters. As desperately as she pushes, the ship comes no closer.

Behind her, another enormous wave rises. When it hits, Menalippe and Antiope are submerged inside it. When it passes, Menalippe glances back, thinking to prepare herself for the next wave. Instead, she looks backwards straight into the black eye of the sea creature Antiope fought off. It's close, so close she thinks if she let go of Antiope she could reach out and touch it.

She can't swim any harder, but she tries to.

Another wave hits, this one even greater than the last.

A terrible, bone-chilling screech fills the air. In an instant, Menalippe is swimming in thick blood instead of water. Hands, human hands, are all about her, pushing her forward and up towards Medea's ship. Sea nymphs, a whole host of them, are carrying her. Behind, a bearded god, dark in his power, has the bulk of the monster skewered on the prongs of an enormous golden trident.

Rain continues to pour down from the black sky.

Over the din of the combat, one of the nymphs shouts into Menalippe's ear, "Escape this place and shut the door that you opened," she yells. "Do not let the elder gods go free."

The tide of sea-spirits bring Menalippe all the way to the ship, where Menalippe manages to clamber back up onto the deck, hauling Antiope after her. Without the strength to be gentle, she drops Antiope on the deck. Amongst the waves, the nymphs take hold of the ship and begin to push it along, far faster than Medea's winds ever could.

Going to her knees, Menalippe shakes Antiope.

Antiope doesn't move.

In the open water, the monster wraps a tentacle around the sea-god's neck.

Medea, staggers across the rolling deck to crouch over Antiope as well. She glares at Menalippe. "Why didn't you just pray when this all started?" Medea shifts Antiope onto her side. Water drains from Antiope's mouth, mixing with the rain on the deck. Working quickly, the witch checks Antiope's breathing and pulse. "You," she snaps at Menalippe. "Blow into her mouth. Big breath."

For a moment, Menalippe squints in confusion. The roar of the storm is deafening – she can't have heard Medea correctly.

Medea pinches Antiope's nose. "Do it," she shouts. "I'm not doing it. I don't know where she's been." Medea reaches out, gets Menalippe by the back of the head, and shoves her face down.

Menalippe takes as deep a breath as she can, puts her mouth against Antiope's, and blows as hard as she can.

Antiope's chest rises slightly, but nothing else happens.

Medea shoves her away and straddles Antiope's waist. She gets both hands on Antiope's sternum and pushes, over and over. A few times, a wave crashes into the ship and Menalippe has to grab Antiope to keep her from sliding away across the deck. After a minute of pushing, Medea puts her hand back on Antiope's nose. "Again," she snaps at Menalippe. "You're lucky your wife died with as much _kleos_ as Hector and Achilles. Don't waste it."

Several times more they alternate.

And, then, Antiope pukes into Menalippe's mouth.

Menalippe recoils, spitting out vomit. She cups her hands, gathering rainwater to wash her mouth out with. Medea rolls Antiope onto her side again as Antiope coughs out more watery bile. With every cough, her entire body convulses.

Mouth still tasting like nothing Menalippe wants to think about, she crawls back to Antiope. She gets one hand on Antiope's shoulder. The other goes onto Antiope's chest, seeking the reassurance of movement. "Antiope?"

Antiope spites out more water. Her eyes are closed. "Love you," she mumbles. "So much."

Medea sits back. She pushes rain-drenched hair out of her face. To Antiope she mutters, "You found yourself a keeper. I hope you have a whole herd of goats ready."

[] [] []

The nymphs take their ship through the storm and to port, outrunning the worst of the storm that boils behind them.

Out in the open water, the sea creature and the sea god continue their struggle, turning the water black with blood. The sea god is not winning.

Antiope's hands are a little pink and a little tender, but, in Medea's words, it is a surprise that they are not far worse for wear after boiling her way free of the tentacle.

Tired and aching, Menalippe dons again her armor. Steel has never felt so heavy. She is glad that she did not have to swim while wearing it.

The waters of the port are not calm, but they are not yet the same raging tempest that they have just come through. Rain falls steadily.

As the ship approaches the dock, Antiope comes to stand beside Menalippe at the rail near where they will set the gangway. She bumps into Menalippe gently with her shoulder. "Do you remember when we crossed the Hellespont?" she asks, a wry grin on her face.

"There was a storm," Menalippe replies. She remembers it well. She remembers clinging to her oar and praying. She also remembers telling Hippolyta to wait a week before attempting the crossing. "We almost crashed on some rocks."

"And do you remember what I said when we made land?" Antiope asks.

"I do," Menalippe says. "You said, ' _Never again_.'"

Antiope looks backwards at the black sea behind them. "Never again," she repeats.

[] [] []

Jason and his men are waiting for them at the dock. They are shining with the light of heroes and they are armed. They block the way to land.

Medea stomps to the prow of the ship and looks over at them. "What are you after?" she demands. "Shouldn't you be sailing to your doom?"

Jason is the sort of man who is ruggedly handsome even in his anger. He gestures with a sword out to the storm that ravages the sea. "Lift your curse, witch," he shouts.

Medea scoffs. "You think I made that storm?" she asks. "I'm flattered. Now be a good man and get out of the way."

Jason shifts. Behind him, his men settle into warlike positions. They are ready for a fight. "We'll not let any of you witches past," Jason says.

Medea turns to Antiope and Menalippe, still on the ship. She shrugs. "When you kill my husband," she says. "Make it painful. Or humiliating. Either works."

[] [] []

Antiope goes crashing across the gangway first, axe in one hand and sword in the other, because she has a primal need to be first always. Menalippe follows her, shield and spear raised.

The first Greek Menalippe fights, she simply charges into him with her shield, knocking him from the dock and into the water.

Rain makes the wood dock slippery, but shades do not bleed and so the dock does not become covered in gore. That is to say, things could be much worse.

Menalippe runs one Greek through, then quickly reverses the direction of her weapon, slamming the butt of her spear into another man's face. His skull gives with a crunch and then he is gone.

She does not fight linearly.

At Menalippe's side, Antiope fights while laughing. In the world of men, killing Greeks was one of her favorite pastimes.

Over the years, Menalippe has enjoyed sparring against her wife. That joy, however, pales in comparison to the joy of fighting by Antiope's side. They move together, complementing one another instinctively. As Antiope opens to cut down an enemy, Menalippe steps in to cover her flank. When a foe approaches from Menalippe's blind spot, Antiope shouts a warning. Their training for this was not of Themyscira, but was born of the bloody battlefields of Greece thousands of years ago. Antiope's savage happiness brawling with Greeks is not quite Menalippe's, but Menalippe is caught in her wife's gravity. Antiope's mood is infectious.

They make short work of Jason's men.

In the end, only Jason remains.

Antiope and Menalippe advance side by side.

Jason retreats back down the length of the dock. Sword in one hand, shield in the other, his teeth are bared in defiance. For all his faults, in life he was a great hero.

As soon as they reach the end of the dock, Menalippe and Antiope will have room to come at him from more than one direction. Likely knowing this, he slows his retreat as they near land and, before they get there, he reverses, hurling himself forward.

Antiope parries his sword with hers, but he swings his shield for her as well.

As he swings his shield, Menalippe brings the point of her spear up, past his guard, and skewers him through the gut.

Shock and anger pass over his handsome features. Then, he fades.

From behind Menalippe and Antiope, Medea walks across the dock to stand over where Jason's shade fell. She pokes the spot with her foot. "Whatever debt you think you might owe me," she says. "Consider it paid. Thank you. That was incredibly fulfilling to watch."

A lock of blonde hair has worked its way free of Antiope's braid. She tucks it behind her ear. "Anytime, my lady," she says.

"The two of you should hurry," Medea says. "Before this," here, she gestures to the rain and the storm behind them, "gets worse."

"You'll not go any further with us?" Antiope asks.

Medea scoffs. "No," she says. "Spite will only get you so much. Good luck."


	8. Typhoeus

**Better Days to Come**

 **Chapter: Typhoeus**

* * *

In the city, Menalippe and Antiope must fight for every foot of ground they cover. It's some of the thickest fighting Menalippe has ever seen. And it is chaos. Every shade fights for himself. The one advantage that Menalippe and Antiope have is that they fight together, two against many. But against so many, this is barely any advantage at all.

Menalippe's shield arm grows tired from the pounding of blows and her spear slips in her sweaty grip. Antiope has dropped her axe in favor of fighting with sword and shield. The extra protection is necessary in the wild brawl. At Menalippe's side, she fights as though she is immune to the creeping exhaustion that is wearing at Menalippe's strength. As she did in life, she seems to draw vitality from cutting men down.

The rain continues to pour. From the distance, barely audible over the din of the melee, Menalippe hears the roll of thunder.

A shade, glowing faintly, makes to strike Antiope with an axe. Menalippe strikes first, slamming the edge of her shield into his temple. He crumples, going to shadow. Menalippe takes another step forward and turns to her next opponent.

[] [] []

A building crashes to the street below.

Antiope reacts fast, ramming her shoulder into Menalippe and knocking them both out of the way. They fall to the ground, slipping and rolling on the rain-slick street. Debris flies through the air, peppering them with bits and pieces of stone and wood.

A dozen shades wink out of existence beneath the rubble.

Antiope pushes to her feet again and offers Menalippe a hand up. Neither of them waste breath on words. They still have a great way farther to go through the crazed melee. They press on.

[] [] []

They fight their way down an alley, Antiope advancing and Menalippe walking backwards, guarding their rear. As quickly as they cut shades down, new shadows spring up against them.

Antiope and Menalippe are finite.

The dead are endless.

[] [] []

They come to a city square. Empty soot-streaked temples ring the plaza. A ruined statue stands in the center, some memory of a monument to a dead man.

A cry goes up among the shades.

" _Achilles_."

It's clear where in the melee the great warrior is, because nearly every shade in the square goes rushing towards him and his brilliant glow of _kleos_. Such is his light that, bathed in it, the shades cast shadows.

Menalippe yanks her wife back by the braid with her shield-hand. In the brief moment of distraction, a shade nearly skewers her with a spear. She narrowly avoids his weapon, then clubs him across the face with the haft of her own weapon.

"It's Achilles," Antiope says, as if this is justification enough to abandon their journey. Her tone borders on _indignant_.

Menalippe takes Antiope's meaning, but she'll have none of it. "I did not come all this way so that you could die again fighting some dusty hero," Menalippe hisses. "The shades are distracted. _Come_."

Ahead of them, a shade is hurled from the melee with such force that, upon slamming into the wall of a house, he vanishes instantly.

[] [] []

They're close, Menalippe thinks, so close to where city becomes slum and the shades turn from violent warriors to things that are more like earth than man, when an arrow slams into her thigh.

"Archer!" Menalippe shouts as she raises her shield up over her head. The result is a defense from the archer and also a respite from the driving rain. As she raises her shield, she catches sight of the shade that hit her, kneeling on a rooftop, shining nearly as bright as Antiope. He's already drawing his bowstring back for another shot.

Antiope turns, sees the arrow in Menalippe's leg, and curses. She gets an arm around Menalippe and, with Antiope cutting down anything that gets in their way, together they stagger through the battle towards the doorway of a nearby house. Antiope kicks the door open and they retreat into the cover. Together they stumble across a mosaic floor streaked with dirt. The mosaic shows a cast of great heroes preparing to sacrifice a fawn. Where it is still somewhat clean, turquoise gleams. This was a grand dwelling, once.

Within the house, the shade of a woman cowers. It's a sorry thing, thin and looking closer to smoke than to flesh.

"Close the door," Antiope barks. The shade does as it's told.

Antiope gets Menalippe seated on the floor and inspects the wound. She squints and gently prods at the arrow shaft, testing for motion. There's some twist to the arrow. It's not lodged in bone. And the placement and bleeding don't suggest a clipped an artery.

Under them, rainwater pools on the mosaic floor. They're beneath a portico that rings the courtyard of the house.

It's a flesh wound. A deep flesh wound, but a flesh wound still.

Teeth clenched, Menalippe watches Antiope work. Both of them know how to deal with something as common as an arrow wound, but it's easier for an unhurt person to treat such injuries.

"We need to push it," Antiope says, voice grim.

Menalippe nods. She's come to the same conclusion. This is not the first time she's been shot.

Antiope grabs some of Menalippe's red cloak and shoves it at her. Menalippe takes a handful of it and bites down on the rain-soaked cloth. It tastes of a mixture of salty sweat and the oil she uses for her armor. The result is unpleasant.

Working fast, Antiope grabs the arrow and shoves hard. It stabs the rest of its way through Menalippe's thigh. Menalippe grunts, the sound muffled by her cloak. Blood splatters on the floor. Antiope cuts the head off with Tabiti's knife, then rips the remainder of the arrow out. Hiding behind a column some distance away, the shade whose house they've invaded whimpers.

Tabiti's knife cauterizes the wound, though not well and not cleanly, and several strips of Menalippe's cloak become a soggy bandage. Menalippe will continue to bleed, but she will not bleed out.

Forgetting her hands are covered in blood now, Antiope tries to wipe thick sweat and rainwater from Menalippe's brow. She leaves a streak of crimson behind. She grimaces at her mistake, then tries again with her forearm instead. "Can you walk?"

Menalippe takes a deep breath. The answer is _no_. Even in the world of men, when there was always a great need for every spear, such a wound would have kept her from the training fields, and certainly from battle, for some time. "I will walk," she says. Biting back a snarl, she starts to shove herself back up to her feet. She uses her spear as a crutch. "And I will fight. We need to get to the cliff. And then climb."

As she stands slowly, Antiope stands quickly to get in position to help her up and then to support her. The two of the, are halfway back to the door when the shade of the house finally speaks. "Wait," she says.

Menalippe and Antiope slow and turn back slightly.

"You're women," the shade says. It is so insubstantial that it seems to flicker in and out of sight even as Menalippe fixes her eyes on it. She thinks that if she reached out to touch it, it would be like touching smoke.

"Yes," Antiope snaps.

"But you're shining," the shade says. It's clear she's speaking to Antiope. "What hero are you?"

"She is Antiope, _strategos_ of the Amazons," Menalippe replies.

The shade's eyes go wide. "If… If you're trying to get to the cliff, there's another way," she says.

[] [] []

The shade of the woman takes them through alleyways so narrow they have to walk in a single-file line to squeeze through them. In some places, rain water has accumulated and they tramp through puddles that rise halfway up their shins. They do not walk so much as wade. The shade says little to them. She is one of the lesser dead. Unremembered, unmourned. She doesn't know her own name. But she is of the city, this precinct of the house of Hades, and so she does know the way.

Even with Antiope at her side propping her up whenever there is room for it in the alleys, every step that Menalippe takes sends a jolt of pain through her leg. She can _feel_ Antiope's radiant worry. She does her best to act as if her wound doesn't hurt. She needs to focus. Antiope needs to focus.

[] [] []

The city slums are, thankfully peaceful but for the continuous pounding of rain. The shade takes Antiope and Menalippe to their edge and then fades back towards the alleys.

Neither Menalippe nor Antiope have the chance to thank her before she is less than a memory.

Menalippe limps over the shades who lie still in the street. Their dead eyes are no less disturbing than they were when she first passed this way. This time, though, she has the comfort of knowing that Antiope, shining, is not one of them.

[] [] []

Menalippe has a distant memory of thinking, when she had finished her descent of the cliff, that the way up would be hard. Standing now once more at the base of it, the only word that comes to her mind is _daunting_. It's not a climb she would want to make even uninjured and in clear weather. With the wind howling and the rain pouring, the cliff looks like a death trap.

"Give me your shield and your spear," Antiope says. She has to shout to be heard. After so long in the storm, she looks as if she's just emerged from a lake.

Menalippe opens her mouth to protest, but her wife cuts her off.

"You're injured. Let me carry them."

Silently, Menalippe hands them over to her wife. She doesn't want to give up her arms. She doesn't want Antiope hauling the extra weight up the cliff. But Antiope is right and Menalippe knows it. As much as she wishes to, she cannot spare her wife from her burdens. Wind whips all around, threatening to blow shield and spear away in the brief moment that the arms pass between them.

Antiope slips the spear strap over her head. The shield joins her own shield on her back. She shifts from side to side, letting the weight of the additions settle.

Menalippe grimaces. A steel shield, even one as finely crafted by Amazon hands, is not a light thing.

But she has a hole in her thigh so there's not much to be done.

"Let's go," Antiope shouts.

Menalippe nods and turns to the cliff. Then, Menalippe starts to climb.

[] [] []

The rain makes the climb treacherous. It's difficult to see the cliff-face. Looking upward, Menalippe has to squint, trying to shield her eyes from the downpour.

The wind has caught her cloak and is trying to use it to rip her away from the cliff and send her tumbling down. Not thinking to abandon it before the climb was an oversight. She hasn't the ability to loosen the cloak now though.

Moving from handhold to handhold, she drags her injured leg behind her, using it to support her but not to push her upwards. It is as if she climbs with only three limbs. She must balance the need to reach the top quickly so as not to expire her strength with a healthy caution. The rocks are slippery. The wind howls. The fall is fatal. She climbs on.

[] [] []

Menalippe doesn't know how far they've come or how far they've yet to go when a great thundering shakes the cliff. Small stones tumble down its face. Menalippe squeezes her eyes shut and tilts her head down against the falling debris. She clings tightly to the cliff, trying to hold perfectly still.

"Menalippe?" Antiope calls out from somewhere nearby, slightly higher. There's an edge of panic in her voice. Panic is unlike her.

"I'm here," Menalippe shouts.

"There is a dragon coming and we need to climb faster," Antiope returns.

Menalippe doesn't have the breath to spare to demand Antiope explain herself. She cranes her neck around, trying to look behind her. For a brief moment, the very world feels unstable as she catches a glimpse of exactly how great a fall it would be should she slip.

In the far distance, over the sea beyond the city, an enormous serpent cuts through the storm-air on mighty wings. It is so large that, though she knows it is a great distance away and though the storm obscures all sight, it seems to loom close. From its humanoid shoulders sprout dozens of snake heads, perhaps a hundred or perhaps more than a hundred, and it has deformed hands wreathed in fire. Behind it, two long tails lash the clouds.

The storm now has lightning and, with lightning, peals of thunder. The lightning strikes at the dragon, but does nothing against it. It hits the serpent's scaly hide and then fizzles down to nothing.

Menalippe turns back to the rocks. She reaches for the next handhold.

She climbs faster.

[] [] []

Her arms become stiff with exhaustion.

Her injured leg is beginning to seize, spasming dangerously when she most needs it to stay steady. Every twitch threatens to send her tumbling off the cliff.

She has the will to go on, but not the strength.

[] [] []

When Menalippe is sure that she can climb no more, her hand finds the muddy ground of the top of the cliff. Antiope is already there and she clasps Menalippe's arm to pull her over.

Finally on solid ground, Menalippe kneels for a moment, searching for her strength again. Kneeling, she twists, looking back.

The dragon is closer now. Perhaps it is over the far edge of the city.

As Menalippe watches, the monster stops and hovers. And, then, it roars. The noise is awful, a high pitched shriek, a great low bellow like a dying ox, the sound of metal screeching across metal, the most vicious profanities, all at once. Fire spews from its many mouths, a great outpouring of flame that sets the city ablaze.

The sound of the roar shakes the ground such that Menalippe and Antiope both scramble away from the edge of the cliff. Even after the sound has gone to echoes, the ground continues to shake. The city itself rises, or, rather, the land beneath the city stands up. It takes the form of a monstrous man, horrible in its size. Buildings stick out from its skin and shades, souls of bright heroes, fall from it as it rises, though some tenaciously hang on. Thunder cracks, deafening.

Its face, if it can be called such, has no eyes, no nose, no ears, only a gaping maw of a mouth. The mouth opens. It screams.

The earth quakes.

On the clifftop, the air next to Menalippe and Antiope shimmers. A man and a woman materialize. Of equal stature, their grim-faces are twin to one another. They make no indication that they see the two Amazons. Both standing taller than Menalippe by several heads, the rain seems not to touch them. They draw bows. They carry no arrows but as they pull back on their bowstrings, shinning bolts appear at their fingertips.

When they release, their brilliant arrows go flying true, unaffected by the storm that rages all around.

Before the arrows reach the dragon in the sky though, it turns towards them and it lets out another great gout of flame from all its mouths. When the fire subsides, there is no trace of the arrows.

With a stony calm, the archers draw once more.

Antiope yanks on Menalippe's arm, urging her to stop watching the spectacle of destruction and start moving again.

Menalippe complies.

Together, they run forward into the wasteland, Antiope supporting Menalippe to make up for her bad leg. The rain hasn't stopped, if anything, it's gotten worse. Mud sucks at their feet. Thunderous lightning booms. The world shakes beneath them.

"Hermes," Menalippe shouts over the crash of the storm. "By whatever name pleases you!"

In an instant, the bearded god is running alongside them, easily keeping pace. His feet do not seem to touch the muddy ground and his _petasos_ shields his face from the rain. "Well met, Amazons," he greets.

"Will you help us?" Menalippe demands.

By all appearances unconcerned at the dragon following in their wake, Hermes laughs. Menalippe can't help but recall Tabiti's disapproval of Menalippe's god and his designs. But now is not the time for such thoughts. "I can't carry the living, you know," he says. "But I can carry the dead. And the dead can carry the living."

"Riddles," Antiope snaps, near breathless as she sprints.

"He wants you to pick me up," Menalippe shouts.

Still running, Antiope bends over, getting one arm behind Menalippe so she can scoop her wife up. No sooner is Menalippe in her hands than Hermes has performed the same maneuver on Antiope and is carrying them both. The wasteland flashes by at a tremendous speed. The rain seems to stand still as they pass. It is as if Hermes runs through a still sea instead of rain.

"Isn't this against the rules," Menalippe asks. She clings to Antiope as if her life depends on it. Her life doesn't depend on it. Antiope would never drop her.

"I am a sheep-stealer," Hermes replies, not without pride. "I don't think much of rules." He glances backwards. Behind them, the earthen creature reaches out towards the archers on the cliff. It slams a fist down onto them. The land gives way, crumbling down towards the city far below.

Furious lightning comes streaking down from the grey heavens, striking the monster, sending sparks of light dancing across its skin of streets and houses and towers. Pinpricks of golden light, heroes who once fell, are climbing now, swarming up the thing to fight again for _kleos_.

Above, the dragon is approaching now again, stalled only briefly by what battle the twins had offered. Slithering through the air, it seems to be gaining ground on the fleeing trio.

Hermes adds, "And the situation calls for it."

Though he speaks now of their situation, his tone betrays no worry, no concern.

"My lord, what is that thing?" Menalippe asks.

"When the world was young and we gods still walked the sunlit realms," Hermes says, "We had a habit of locking up things we didn't like down here. We shut them away, one by one. Normally, they sleep. But when a mortal, such as yourself, opens the door out and then tries to escape with the dead, things wake up. Old gods. Monsters. All sorts of nameless creatures. My siblings too."

Guilt has only just begun to seize Menalippe when Hermes cuts into her thoughts.

"Mortals are pawns," he says. Even against the storm, his voice is clear, loud, easy to hear. He sounds proud of himself. Smug. "My visions lured you here."

They blur past the great skeleton of the three-headed dog, the only landmark out in the wastes.

Now, Antiope cuts in. Her voice is as near to a snarl as Menalippe has ever heard it. "What have you done, god?"

The river Acheron is in sight now, though just barely. Rain obscures everything. Hermes speeds towards it. "I orchestrated a deal," he says. "Nothing more." Gently, he sets Antiope and Menalippe down on the riverbank.

"Your price," Menalippe says. Taking her spear back from her wife, she leans heavily on it. While she is thankful that they have come so far, she is sorry to be back on her own legs again. "What did you want?"

Deathly slow, in the distance, Charon and his skiff approach. Hermes wades into the grey waters. He bends down and then stands again with water cupped in his hands. His movements are quick. For all his nonchalance, he is rushing. Rain falls into his handful of water, splashing some of it over the sides of his hands. "Kneel, Menalippe," he says. "I am taking my Sight back."

Menalippe does not hesitate to kneel, though her wounded leg protests.

Antiope sets a hand on her shoulder. "Menalippe, are you sure?" To Hermes, she asks, "All this just to take back something you gave away?" Her voice is sharp.

Hermes lets the stygian water from his hands wash over Menalippe's forehead. Menalippe closes her eyes briefly as it trickles over her face. "When we made this deal," Hermes says, "I told her that I would ask for something that she valued less than you, Antiope of the Amazons. So she has come out the better, and you have as well. All of us here have gained something. I think that you should be content with this resolution."

Antiope is not content with the resolution. She scowls. "You've risked _that thing_ ," she points to the dragon, nearly upon them now in the storm, "For what? For a bit of power? You're a _god_."

Around them, thunder crashes. Hermes offers Menalippe his hand, helping her to stand again.

"I am a dead god," Hermes says. He looks back, towards the dragon. It is nearly upon them. "And this gift that I gave so long ago has matured into something powerful. But do not fear. I will use it well. And, if you succeed in escaping this place, I think perhaps you will see me again."

"My lord," Menalippe interjects. Antiope will get nowhere by arguing, especially not against one such as Hermes. "What guidance can you give?"

Hermes shrugs. "Let Charon take you across the river. Go back up the stairs, close the door. Hurry, if you can. It would be unfortunate if you failed." He reaches out and wipes a bit of water from Menalippe's brow with his thumb. "Go well, Menalippe, chosen of Hermes." With a glance, Hermes regards Antiope as well. "And Antiope, wife of Menalippe."

And then he is gone.

" _Gods_ ," Antiope spits. " _Men_."

Charon is close now. Menalippe wades into the river towards him. "Come," she says to her wife.

Charon does not help either of them into his craft. He merely observes them, climbing aboard. Menalippe's living weight nearly tips the skiff over. Rain fills the hull of the boat, but doesn't sink it. Insomuch as the skiff is part of Charon himself, Menalippe doubts anything could truly force it beneath the water. When Menalippe and Antiope are both aboard, Menalippe says, "Let's go."

Charon nods and pushes off with his pole.

Antiope looks fearfully back towards the shore. "Can that monster cross without your help?" she asks.

Charon does not pause his motion. He continues to propel his boat across the grey river as he speaks. "Typhon is not dead," he says dryly. "And it flies."

Antiope clasps hands with her wife. She grips tightly. Her tone does not betray her fear. "So I take it that's a yes?"

Charon turns his black, star-lit eyes on her. "Yes."

Antiope glances again towards the approaching creature. She scowls hard. "Can you go any faster?" She speaks in a carefully controlled growl.

"No," Charon replies.

Antiope opens her mouth to say something, probably something rude. Menalippe intercepts. "He's a function, not a god," she says. "Yelling at him won't change his nature."

Antiope's frustration is palpable. Her grip on Menalippe's hand is steel. Menalippe rubs the pad of her thumb over the back of Antiope's hand, offering what comfort she can.

Lifting both their hands, Antiope kisses Menalippe's hand clasped with hers.

Ahead, the great obsidian cliff looms, the climb back up to the gates of the underworld.

[] [] []

Neither Antiope nor Menalippe wait for Charon's skiff to bump against the far shore. As soon as it seems safe, they leap from the craft, landing in the shallows of the river. They do not give Charon any parting words.

The water is choppy from the beating of the dragon's wings and the pounding of rain.

Menalippe limps as swiftly as she can towards the base of the steps up the dark cliff. Antiope follows her. The rocky shore crunches under their feet. Menalippe leads up the stairs. For the most part she goes quickly. The stairs, slippery with rain though they are, supported her on the way down. They have remained unchanged since the world formed them. They will hold her on the way back. Even so, she has to resist the temptation to reach out to touch the sharp cliff wall for more stability. If she does and she should slip, her hand could be sliced to ribbons.

The reprieve of Hermes and Charon was good for her injury. But, still, she is weary. One step at a time.

Menalippe focuses on her footing, ignores the throbbing pain in her leg, ignores the approaching beating of wings, and climbs. She uses her spear as a walking staff, half-hauling herself along after it for want of two good legs. She has come much too far to fail now.

They're perhaps past three quarters of the way up the cliff when Antiope shouts something. Menalippe has just enough time to brace herself before her wife slams into her back and covers them both with her shield. And then the fire hits.

Steam rises from tattered remains of Menalippe's cloak. She feels as if her skin is cooking. The metal of Antiope's shield glows. A hand on her back pushes her forward. Antiope wants her to keep moving. So she does.

One step at a time.

The heat is nearly unbearable. The edges of Antiope's shield look to be melting. But, somehow, Antiope keeps the cover up.

The air is so hot it hurts to breathe. Menalippe's throat feels raw and burnt.

They go maybe ten steps before the fire stops. Antiope lowers the shield. Her hand is still on Menalippe's back, still urging her wife forward. "Halfway there," she shouts.

Menalippe can see the top of the cliff. They are more than halfway there.

She glances out to her side. The flying serpent is nearly upon them. Another one of its heads looks as if it is about to spew more flame. It's drawn back slightly and tongues of fire lick across its scaled lips. With the falling rain, it is partially obscured by steam.

Pushing down the pain in her leg, Menalippe breaks into a mad sprint. She can hear Antiope right behind her.

The blast of fire hits close to Antiope's heels. Chips of obsidian fly, cutting at Menalippe's skin where they hit her.

It's not the fire that's the problem anymore though.

The beast has gained on them, and it's about to pass them. Its scaly necks extend directly above and every beat of its great wings slams air against them. Menalippe hurls herself up over the place where the stairs meet the top of the cliff and scrambles back into a headlong dash. The door is ahead. So is the dragon.

At any moment Menalippe thinks that her leg might collapse under her. But she will not let it collapse. She cannot. _She will not_.

As she runs, Menalippe lifts her spear. She aims. She throws. Her spear is not the sort of spear that was meant to be thrown. Even on a clear day without the rain and the great wind from the dragon's wings, the shot would be near impossible with such a weapon. It does not fly true. It glances harmlessly off the underbelly of the monster.

Antiope is running beside her. "Your shield," Antiope shouts. "Give me your shield!"

Antiope's own shield is slag. Its rim is all a mess of congealed metal. She shakes it from her arm, letting it drop. Menalippe takes her shield and she gives it to Antiope as they run. Antiope hurls it like a discus, sending it spinning for one of the necks of the dragon's hundred serpentine heads. It cuts into scaled skin and lodges there. Black blood spills out. Where the blood drips to the earth, the ground boils. The rain turns to steam around it. The dragon lets out a roar of surprise and possibly pain. In an instant, it pauses its advance and all its heads turn towards Antiope.

Menalippe reaches the great door. She stumbles over the threshold into the dark cave beyond, then turns. She means to turn to go to close the door, but as she turns –

She is alone.

Antiope has not come through the door.

And beyond the door –

All she sees is fire.

Fire and fire and fire and flame and fire, blinding.

The air that she breathes scorches her throat.

Menalippe screams.


	9. Oikos

**Better Days to Come**

 **Chapter: Oikos**

* * *

Menalippe hears her heart pounding in her ears. Her heartbeat sounds louder even than the roar of the flames.

 _One_. _Two_. _Three_. _Four_.

She stands before the gate, frozen.

But surely she must – she must close the gate.

Her heart is beating. Time is passing, time she does not have.

 _Five_. _Six_. _Seven_.

Tears leak from her eyes, mingling with sweat and rolling hot down her face.

 _Ten. Eleven. Twelve._

She must close the gate.

Menalippe staggers to the door and rests her back against it. For all the fire and flame, the metal is cold as ice. She leans against the door, but she doesn't push. Trembling, she is paralyzed. She looks back towards where the inferno burns out from the other side of the gate.

 _Fifteen_. _Sixteen_.

Menalippe squeezes her eyes shut. Finally, she pushes. The door doesn't move. When she opened it, it opened almost of its own accord. Closing it now takes all of her strength. Bracing against the ground, her bad leg screams. She screams as well, a guttural snarl laced with rage. She pushes harder.

 _Twenty_. _Twenty-one. Twenty-two_.

The door gives, slightly, a bare inch. Menalippe pauses. Her breath is ragged, broken, as she sucks in burning air. She opens her eyes. She looks back, one more time. One last time.

 _Twenty-three._

Nothing. It was all for nothing.

 _Twenty-four._

 _Twenty-five._

 _Twenty-six._

A human hand grabs at the edge of the door.

Antiope, clothes burnt away, still surrounded by an aura of fire, staggers through the portal. She's clutching Tabiti's knife, the only thing aside from her body that has survived the flames. She collapses to her knees in the cave. She is shaking. She gulps at the air in loud, desperate gasps. The after-images of flame still lick about her form.

Menalippe wastes no more time. "Help me!"

Antiope rises and stumbles to Menalippe's side and sets her shoulder to the door. Together, they push. Together, they force the door shut one inch at a time.

On the other side, something slams into the door, nearly knocking Menalippe down. She holds her ground, barely. Next to her, Antiope gets her entire back against the door and pushes, snarling. Her bare feet scramble for purchase against the stone floor of the cave.

Twice more, the dragon on the other side tries to batter its way through the door, but as hard as the door is for them to close, it must be even harder for the old god to open. The gate was made for mortal hands.

Menalippe knows when the door is shut once more because the cave, lit before by the flames from the house of the dead, goes dark. Heat still lingers in the dry air. She slides down against the cold metal until she's seated on the ground. She thinks that her eyes are closed, but it's hard to tell. The backs of her eyelids are blindingly bright with the memory of fire.

Next to her, she can hear Antiope breathing, having similarly sunk to the floor of the cave.

And, out in the cave, Menalippe hears the beating of wings.

"Harpies," Menalippe whispers. Her throat is ragged and it hurts even to say that much. She pushes weakly, trying to rise again, but her arms are limp with exhaustion. But rise again she must. She tries again. She fails again.

Beside Menalippe, _light_ – Tabiti's knife in Antiope's hand bursts into flame. Fire engulfs the blade and winds its way down Antiope's forearm. It casts flickering shadows all about the cavern and puts the nearest harpy in stark relief. Winged mass of twisted near-human flesh, it is diving quickly towards them. Antiope staggers to her feet so that she stands just in front of Menalippe. Her gaze is fixed on the creature.

Antiope holds out her open hand, then closes it into a fist.

The harpy _burns_. As it burns, it screams in surprise and agony. Its feathers blaze brightly and its flesh smokes. The smell of flaming rot and excrement rolls out from the blaze.

Menalippe gags.

"I'll kill them," Antiope says softly. Her conviction is steel. She is already looking for the next enemy. No more harpies come.

Menalippe and Antiope have not come so far, come through so much, to be done in by scavengers. Antiope's hand that grips Tabiti's knife is still wreathed in fire. Her free hand, however, she holds out for her wife.

Menalippe takes Antiope's hand. Antiope's grip is firm. It is solid. It is physical. It is _real_. Menalippe sucks in one deep breath, then rises to her feet once more. Her injured leg nearly collapses out from under her. They're so near to the sunlit world. She shifts her weight onto her good leg and stays standing. Once she's up, Antiope wraps her arm around Menalippe and gets a shoulder in position to support her as they walk through the cave.

Antiope holds her burning knife aloft to light their way. The fire that wreathes her weapon and her hand crackles gently. When they pass the corpse of the harpy Antiope burnt, it is still smoking, still exuding a horrific stench.

The rest of the harpies keep to the far walls of the cave. As they hide in the shadows and they jeer.

"That was a stupid thing you did, leaving part of yourself behind," a voice calls out in a screech, discordant to hear. It would be chilling, were it not so thickly laced with fear.

"The barrier is weaker now," another says.

"This is not the end," the harpies warn.

"Ignore them," Antiope says softly.

Menalippe nods weakly. Exhausted, she has barely enough thought left in her to acknowledge her wife's new affinity with fire. She has no ability at all to pay the harpies any mind. The future will come when it will.

They make it to the cave entrance where Menalippe's small boat is still moored. It looks far worse for wear than Menalippe remembers it, but it is still seaworthy enough to serve them. Beyond the cave, the sea surrounding the island is choppy. The brooding sky threatens a rare Themysciran storm. At least, however, no rain has begun. Menalippe has had enough of rain.

Antiope takes the oars and Menalippe lies down. As an afterthought, Menalippe takes what remains of her cloak and offers it to her wife.

Antiope looks at it skeptically.

Too tired to keep holding the cloth out for her wife, Menalippe lets her arm drop down again. She shakes her head slightly in resignation.

As the small boat slips from the shadows of the cave and into dim sunlight and free air, Antiope laughs. Beneath the open sky, even in the weak light of a coming storm, her skin seems to shine, but with life instead of _kleos_. Lithe and muscled, her form is covered in old scars, some more prominent than others. The largest of them is from where an axe took a bite out of her shoulder.

She is beautiful.

Barely able to move for exhaustion, Menalippe manages to join Antiope in her laughter.

Menalippe laughs with her wife.

[] [] []

The cave is on the far side of the island from the beach where one can climb up to the city, so Antiope takes them around. Though she is not as tired as Menalippe, she is far from fresh. What's more, the sea, normally placid, is choppy from wind. Their going is slow.

Menalippe is lying propped up in the bottom of the boat by Antiope's feet. After a comment that it's not as if everyone on Themyscira hasn't seen her naked before, Antiope has wrapped Menalippe's cloak around her waist.

From her vantage point, Menalippe can watch the heavy and dark sky. She does not much like the prospect of being caught at sea in yet another storm. She shifts, anxious.

As if reading her mind, Antiope murmurs, "Don't worry, my love. I said _never again_. I meant _never again_."

[] [] []

The beach is empty when Antiope steers their boat into the white sand. She gets out and hauls the craft up farther so that it won't be swept back out by the waves and tide. Then, she goes back to help Menalippe climb out of the boat as well.

Being mostly dragged up by Antiope is one of the less graceful things Menalippe has done in recent memory, but it works well enough. As her bad leg starts to buckle, Antiope gets back in position to prop her up. With Antiope's help, Menalippe limps the long way towards the tall gate that cordons off the beach from the road to the city. The fine sand gives beneath Menalippe's weight, making walking all the harder.

The gate, thick wood bound with heavy steel and often left open, has been closed in advance of the storm.

At the top of the gate, there's movement among the sentries, but with the glare from the overcast sky it is near to impossible to see which of their sisters man the fortification. No one hails them until they're almost at the foot of the gate itself.

"Identify yourselves!"

Menalippe and Antiope look up towards the speaker. Menalippe thinks she recognizes the voice and the long brown hair confirms it. She frowns. Atalanta is not one of the island's usual warriors. When she does her shifts guarding the island, it is almost never as a sentry. She doesn't like staying still so long.

"Antiope and Menalippe," Antiope calls up. She shields her eyes from the glare of the sky with the hand she's not using to keep Menalippe standing. Tabiti's knife has been wrapped in a bit of Menalippe's cloak and then slipped into the waist of her makeshift garment.

Atalanta pulls back from where she was looking out over the gate. While she's no doubt talking to the other guards, those voices don't carry down to the beach.

As they wait, Menalippe's good leg begins threatening to spasm. She is much too tired to be standing, even with Antiope's help.

When Atalanta finally appears again, the gate does not open. Several more of the guards are now looking down at them. From the way they stand, two of them have drawn bows and nocked arrows. "Antiope and Menalippe are dead," Atalanta says. There's a note of uncertainty in her tone.

Menalippe scowls. Clearly they are not dead. Acting on habit, Menalippe reaches for the threads of Fate. She would like to See how best to make their sisters open the gate faster. The threads are nowhere. In the part of her mind where she used to find them, there is nothing. There is a blank grey void. The air around her is warm, but the space in her mind where her Sight was feels cold. She shivers.

"Let us in," Antiope snaps. Her grip on Menalippe is tight. "Or go get my sister."

Up on the top of the gate, there is hesitation.

"Atalanta," Menalippe calls up. Her throat hurts to speak so loudly. She closes her eyes and leans more heavily on her wife. "Meleager asked if you still lived," she says. "And he wished to know if you remembered him."

Hesitation turns to frozen silence. Then, "Wait there," Atalanta shouts.

[] [] []

Antiope sits in the white sand and Menalippe rests against her. Neither of them have any interest in a shouted conversation with their sisters atop the gate and there's little else to do on the beach. It has been some time since Atalanta told them to wait.

A cool sea breeze passes over them. The air smells of salt and rain to come. Were it not such a grey day, the wind would be a peaceful, refreshing thing. Even with the threat of a storm, the breeze saps tension away from the two of them.

"Hippolyta will be happy to see you," Menalippe mutters. Sleep, sweet sleep, tugs at her exhausted mind. Her eyelids are heavy.

"I didn't come back for Hippolyta's happiness," Antiope replies.

Menalippe chuckles and closes her eyes. "I am happy," Menalippe says. She can feel Antiope, close, breathing. She can feel Antiope's chest rising and falling. In and out. _Alive_.

Antiope hums softly. Her warm breath tickles Menalippe's ear. "Good."

For a while, there's silence between them. The gentle push of waves is steady in the background.

Here, though the gate is closed to them, there is peace.

Antiope shifts slightly. Menalippe can't see Antiope's face, but she can hear the grin in her tone. "Do you know what would make me happy when we get home?"

"Antiope," Menalippe begins. She takes a deep breath, steeling herself to speak. "I am too tired to move, I have a hole in my leg, and you owe me a herd of goats."

Antiope settles again. "I love you," Antiope says.

"I love you," Menalippe replies.

"Will Hippolyta be happy enough she gives me a herd of goats?" Antiope asks. She shifts so that her cheek rests against the top of Menalippe's head.

"Hippolyta will be happy enough she gives _me_ a herd of goats," Menalippe replies.

"What are you going to do with a herd of goats?" Antiope asks. "I at least would put them to good use."

"And what use is that, my love?" Menalippe prompts.

"Giving them to you, of course," Antiope answers.

[] [] []

When Atalanta finally returns to poke her head out over the gate, she shouts for them to get out of the way. Antiope helps Menalippe up and then helps her stagger back, creating room for the gate to swing open. On the other side are Philippus and Mnemosyne, both dressed for war and sitting astride tall brown horses. They are accompanied by more Amazons, armed, armored, and on foot.

Philippus is grinning broadly. Mnemosyne is not.

"Antiope! Menalippe!" Philippus calls out. As always, her voice is louder than she seems to realize. She urges her horse to approach them. Mnemosyne stays back, sitting stiffly tall in her saddle.

"Philippus," Antiope answers. She too is grinning.

"The last time I saw you, you were on fire," Philippus says.

"She does that these days," Menalippe mutters.

"We must take you to Hippolyta," Philippus announces. "Thank the gods - she'll be thrilled." As she speaks, she slips down from her horse and walks over to her two sisters. She gets both of them at the same time in a great bear hug.

As good as it is to be embraced by her fellow captain, Menalippe hisses at the jolt that the embrace sends screaming down her bad leg. Philippus pulls back immediately. She looks down at the soggy and dirty makeshift bandage wrapped around Menalippe's thigh. "Take my horse," she says. "Do you need to see the healers before we go up to the palace?"

" _Strategos_ ," Mnemosyne finally cuts in. The councilwoman's voice is chill. "These people must be taken to the queen immediately. And the gate must be closed behind them, lest anything follow them up and out from wherever it is they came from."

"Not going to give us a hug as well, Mnemosyne?" Antiope asks dryly.

"Antiope," Menalippe warns, voice low. Antiope responds to her with a very soft rumble in the back of her throat. She will back down, but she is less than pleased about it.

Mnemosyne doesn't answer Antiope's jab. She watches, mouth tight, as Antiope helps Menalippe up onto Philippus' horse. Antiope kneels down in the sand and puts her hands together to form a step for Menalippe's weight-bearing leg, then stands, boosting her wife up. Even with Antiope's aid, the process is difficult and painful.

Once astride the horse, Menalippe is so tired she can barely sit up straight in the saddle. She is sure that the horse is less than happy with this, but it refrains from expressing its displeasure. She is adjusting her seat as best she can when Atalanta ducks through the guards to come up beside her.

"What did you tell him?" Atalanta asks. She speaks quietly. Her words are not for the crowd.

Guilt tugs at Menalippe. Tired and wishing only for home as quickly as possible, she should have said nothing. But what was done was done. "I told him you were well," she says. "I think that pleased him."

"I see," Atalanta murmurs. There is something far-off in her eyes. Then she turns. As quickly as she wove her way to Menalippe, she goes again, back to her post on the gate.

Antiope reaches out and gives Menalippe's calf a quick squeeze. She looks up at her wife with clear blue eyes and offers a small smile.

" _Strategoi_ ," Philippus says. She sweeps a hand up to indicate the city and the palace above it. "Shall we?"

Nearby, Mnemosyne radiates annoyance.

With Menalippe mounted and Antiope walking beside her they set out for the palace above the city, accompanied by Philippus, Mnemosyne, and their guards.

Every step that the horse takes jostles Menalippe's bad leg, but riding is far better than walking.

To go from the beach to the palace, they must pass through the nearly the entire city.

Menalippe remembers a white city, gleaming in the sun. That is not the city they pass through. Many buildings are stained with soot. A few have collapsed, some with signs of fire and some without. The women on the streets who stop and stare at them are all armed and armored. The Amazons have not been so ready for war since they left the world of men.

"Captain," Antiope says, looking to Philippus. Her voice is serious. "What has happened here?"

"Some time after Menalippe left, there was an earthquake," Philippus replies. She shrugs, but her tone and her face betray her own solemnity. "A few monsters have taken to visiting on occasion since then. The buildings are in a state but no one has died."

"You should not have been permitted to leave," Mnemosyne says frostily. It is clear that she is speaking to Menalippe. "That you did so – _irresponsible_."

"Irresponsible?" Antiope snaps.

Mnemosyne now trains her aristocratic chill on Antiope. "For a seer to traipse off against the laws of nature and with no regard to the prophecies of others warning against doing such a thing? To call this behavior 'irresponsible' is kind." Apparently seeing no reason to restrain herself, she continues. "You – you at least had no choice in this. And I am glad for your return, truly. But your wife had a choice. As did our queen. And they chose against the interests of our people."

Menalippe is unwilling to rise against such accusations. Her mind echoes with fire. But, true though Mnemosyne's words may be, _irresponsible_ and _wrong_ are two very different things. She lacks both way and will to change the past.

Antiope is another story entirely. "And how do you know this? How is it that you are blaming my wife for an earthquake?" she growls.

Philippus cuts in now. Unlike Mnemosyne she is not cold. Her voice does, however, admit some level of annoyance. "Clio," she says. "Clio knew more than she told any of us and kept it that way until she judged it was far too late to stop anything." Philippus offers Menalippe a wry grin. "Seems Clio wanted Antiope back almost as much as you did."

Mnemosyne is taking a breath, doubtless to start in on Clio, but Philippus heads her off. "If trouble comes, I would rather face it with my _strategoi_ leading me than without them. I am glad they have returned."

Finally saying something diplomatic, Mnemosyne answers, "And I hope that their return has ended our troubles. In the way of these things, however, I have my doubts."

[] [] []

Artemis stands at the gate of the palace, flanked by her sister Alexa and Areto as well. Both of Artemis' eyebrows shoot up when she sees the convoy approaching. She does not move to let them pass, though she does raise a hand to hail them. When she speaks, her voice is warm. "I take it you are here to see the queen?"

"They are," Philippus answers for them.

Captain of Hippolyta's guard, Artemis looks to her two subordinates briefly, thinking. Then, "I will go speak to her," she says. "You are family, of course, but, as Phillippus and Mnemosyne know, the queen has been very unwilling to take visitors of late and I would rather give her warning than not."

Mnemosyne says nothing, but from the stiffness of her posture, Menalippe knows her mind despite her silence.

"Of course," Antiope says. There's an edge of weariness in her voice. They have been waiting since they came out into the light from the cave. Antiope is not one to wait easily. It bores and tires her.

Up on Philippus' horse, Menalippe is near to falling off from her own exhaustion. She taps Antiope's scarred shoulder with her good foot. Obligingly, Antiope moves to help her down. The going is painfully slow. It is not long after she is on the ground once more that Artemis returns. She has brought one of Antiope's tunics from their chest of belongings in their room and a belt as well. The cloth is a brilliant blue that matches Antiope's eyes.

"She will see you," Artemis says as she offers Antiope the tunic. "I didn't tell her who it was, only that it was important. She's in the garden."

Antiope pulls the tunic on. She removes Menalippe's cloak and drapes it over one of her shoulders. Her knife in its makeshift sheath goes into her belt. "We'll be a surprise," Antiope says. "Hippolyta does love a good surprise."

A chuckle runs through the group. Even Mnemosyne looks like she might be thinking about smiling. They all know exactly what Hippolyta thinks of a good surprise.

By an unspoken consensus, only Antiope and Menalippe advance towards now open gates.

As Menalippe and Antiope pass her into the palace, Artemis reaches out and sets a hand on Antiope's shoulder. "It is good to see you again," she says. She looks then to Menalippe. There's a moment of hesitation as she considers what to say next. " _Strategoi_."

[] [] []

Menalippe has never felt so perfectly grimy as she walks through the palace. She feels soaked, singed, and as if she is spreading dirt all over Hippolyta's pristine floors. Her boots clank unpleasantly with every step. At least, however, she has Antiope with her, supporting her as she walks. Any mess that may result from their passing is on account of her wife.

Hippolyta sits slumped on a white marble bench beside an apple tree heavy with ripe fruit. Her elbows are on her knees and she seems to be contemplating a spot of ground some way off. She wears a loose gown. Her hair is down and her crown is nowhere to be seen. Her face is gaunt and everything about her is distant.

Antiope strides into Hippolyta's garden as if she owns it. She walks with all the confidence of the returning hero that she is. She fills the emptiness of the space.

Hippolyta looks up.

There is a heartbeat, a single heartbeat, of perfect silence and stillness.

The moment of recognition plays out across Hippolyta's face and it is as if a dark cloud has lifted from her, from the garden, from the palace, from the island even.

In a rush Hippolyta is standing, she's crossing the pavement of the garden, she's got Antiope in her arms, then she's got her hands on either side of Antiope's face. She kisses her sister on the lips. When she pulls away, she doesn't speak for laughter. Tears glimmer at the edges of her eyes. She kisses her sister again.

Giving the two space, Menalippe leans up against one of the white columns at the outer edge of the garden.

Antiope wraps Hippolyta in a bear hug, then picks her up and spins her around. When she sets Hippolyta down again, she too can hardly speak for laughter. "Careful, sister," she says. "You'll make my wife jealous."

Hippolyta shoves Antiope away and then strides over to her sister-in-law. She gives Menalippe a full kiss as well. Hippolyta's eyes shine with delight. Unlike Antiope, Menalippe gets words from the queen. "You brought her back," Hippolyta says. "You brought _yourself_ back."

Menalippe smiles. "I did," she says.

"And now you're making me jealous," Antiope interjects, somewhat plaintively.

Hippolyta kisses Menalippe again. "Thank you."

Antiope's arms wrap around Menalippe, drawing her away from Hippolyta.

Menalippe rests her cheek against Antiope's head. She leans into her wife. There is much to say, so much to say. And there will be time enough for it all.

But now, in this moment -

Menalippe continues to smile.

* * *

A/N: That's all folks. I hope you enjoyed reading this as much as I enjoyed writing it! (And if you did enjoy reading this, since this is the end of a 40k+ word fic, I will say this once: I would encourage you to leave a review. Fics are a really big expenditure of time and energy and authors get compensated entirely in reviews from readers.)

Looking to the future, I'm hoping to post a 100% fluff fic for this pairing sometime soon and then I have plans to NaNoWriMo an ancient Greece Trojan War/Peloponnesian War/War of the Gods AU for these two next month. We'll see where that goes though, hah.

So yeah.

:)


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